Let's talk about VA

When I think about VA in wine what comes to mind is the kind of cheap Beaujolais I would buy in grad school. This is probably accentuated by the fact that I often wouldn't finish the bottle and would leave it on the table for a few days before finishing it. I remember both the regular VA smell and hints of acetone and esters, especially when "aged."

Naturally this is much rarer with the sort of Beaujolais I have been buying since learning about the better producers here...

So, why hasn't anyone mentioned this? Is this "real", do you know what I'm talking about?
 
originally posted by Thor: I find Turleys and Carlisles undrinkable -- and I do, literally so -- is the overwhelming VA, not because of the fruit or alcohol. Obviously, they're poster-children for what I'd call grossly overripe fruit, and much of the world seems to adore the wines, but while I can often see what others like about wines I hate, I just can't see it in these cases; I think the wines are unrecoverably flawed. So am I just conflating overripe fruit and VA, or is it the same chemical?
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Thor, Very interesting!

While a very big Zin admirer, I, like you, have never liked the Turley Zins. Maybe since I don't like them, I haven't really thought enough about them so as to detect the VA component.

Yes, the fruit is definitely overripe, in my view, in the Turley Zins. I just never thought of it as being related to VA.

. . . . . Pete
 
Sharon, I don't think that slightly cloying note in ripe mangoes and melons is ethyl acetate, as I can't stand the former but have no problem with the latter.

Mark, that's interesting about in-nose (in olfa?) ethyl acetate hydrolysis, but noses can't be that strongly acidic, can they?
 
originally posted by Arjun Mendiratta:
Sharon, I don't think that slightly cloying note in ripe mangoes and melons is ethyl acetate, as I can't stand the former but have no problem with the latter.

Mark, that's interesting about in-nose (in olfa?) ethyl acetate hydrolysis, but noses can't be that strongly acidic, can they?
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With the proviso that -- as SFJoe pointed out -- esterases may be the causative agents, I don't see much problem with microscopic regions of high acidity in the nasal mucosa. Pure speculation, I admit, but far stranger things happen in the body IMO.

Mark Lipton
 
Arjun,
It would be better if noses were basic to saponify an ester. But they're pretty neutral as you would expect.
 
I now need enlightenment. I have always identified VA with nail polish or vinegar, as some have noted above. I am now hearing it discussed in terms of dried or oversweet fruit flavors that I have always connected with overripeness. Are these related? Is there a way to draw a distinction? Is every wine that tastes pruney or portlike (in the manner of Turley) affected with VA? When Sharon didn't like the Pierre Andre at the recent jeebus I was at as a pruney mess, was she being more sensitive to VA than she thought? Or should these "flaws" be distinguished?
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
I now need enlightenment. I have always identified VA with nail polish or vinegar, as some have noted above. I am now hearing it discussed in terms of dried or oversweet fruit flavors that I have always connected with overripeness. Are these related? Is there a way to draw a distinction? Is every wine that tastes pruney or portlike (in the manner of Turley) affected with VA? When Sharon didn't like the Pierre Andre at the recent jeebus I was at as a pruney mess, was she being more sensitive to VA than she thought? Or should these "flaws" be distinguished?
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Jonathan,

I think that the two are related in that wines with very high levels of sugar are more likely to have ferments that result in formation of VA. But I do think the two should be distinguished--I think it is possible to have clean ferments even in high sugar conditions. It's also possible nowadays to remove VA from wines, leaving overripe flavors perfectly intact.

Joe
 
originally posted by Florida Jim:
I suspect I'm more tolerant of VA on the first glass then on the last.
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Same here. Like eating spicy salsa - where the heat can persist and build with each bite.
 
While it can be horribly off-putting in some wines, I find certain degrees of VA enticing in some wines like Quintarelli and Musar. I'm not sure where the threshold is and what offsets it to make it palatable in those versus others.

Best,
John
 
a drop of decent young vinegar in a bottle of Modelo Especial turns it from cloying wonderbread shit into bracing if not interesting lager.

La gaudriole was unanimously more appreciated as it developed VA in bottle in 2007.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
There is plenty of evidence of genetic differences affecting food interactions. Off the top of my head I can think of several: the taste of cilantro, the smell of asparagus in urine, the taste of sulfur in onions or cabbage.

Presumably, those who are "super tasters" got that way because a gene told their body to build more papillae on the tongue.
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They perceive it, but do they necessarily dislike it? It's the reaction which I'm interested in; seems relatively straightforward that perception is gene-dependent. Can one, for example, be one of those who perceive soapiness in coriander and still enjoy eating it?
 
Re: cilantro, yes, if some acquaintances' claims are true. They agree that it tastes like soap, but they still claim to love it. I myself can definitely taste the soap as one element among many, though I wonder how much of that is mere suggestion, and yet I still like it. (What I'm coming to dislike with growing intensity is parsley. No idea why.)
 
originally posted by Yixin: They perceive it, but do they necessarily dislike it? It's the reaction which I'm interested in; seems relatively straightforward that perception is gene-dependent. Can one, for example, be one of those who perceive soapiness in coriander and still enjoy eating it?
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but of course....why do you think some unnamed critics mention the fecal word in a praising review? (i prefer to flush mine, but a touch of barnyard never hurt me).

liking soap notes is pretty easy i think....it goes back to childhood and getting caught saying uncouth things.
 
originally posted by Thor:(What I'm coming to dislike with growing intensity is parsley. No idea why.)
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You've been eating bad parsley?

There are definitely a lot of off flavors in some examples of the herb.
 
There are probably few wines in the world with more VA than pre-1968 Vega Sicilia. At their best, they are very uplifting. At their worst (sometimes, more than half the bottles in a case - at release!), they are vinegar.
 
originally posted by MLipton:
originally posted by Thor:
Most people, OTOH, tend to associate its smell with overripe fruit
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Question: is it actually the same aroma, or is there a set of aromas that can be confused?
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Almost certainly there are multiple aromas, all of which constitute what we think of as "overripe fruit." I'd guess that many of them are congeners of ethyl acetate: things like methyl propionate, ethyl propionate, butyl acetate, etc.
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Things like diacetyl and amyl acetate have different notes in different concentrations.
 
originally posted by Yixin:
They perceive it, but do they necessarily dislike it? It's the reaction which I'm interested in; seems relatively straightforward that perception is gene-dependent. Can one, for example, be one of those who perceive soapiness in coriander and still enjoy eating it?
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Despite Thor's example, I think it is rare for a person to seek out foods that smell like soap and rotten eggs.

Joel, of course, has misstated the case. The use of "fecal" et alia is merely a descriptor, an effort to make us think about the smells he smelled. If it really smelled like shite, he wouldn't put it in his mouth.
 
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