Gamay and Brett ('14 Coquelet Chiroubles VV)

My experience with Coquelet has been wines that were overly influenced by carbonic maceration. I haven't experienced brett but I tend not to drink the wines often because I feel they lack balance for Cru Beaujolais.

I do wonder if sometimes particularly feral expressions of syrah and mourvedre are sometimes mistaken for low level brett in Rhone and throughout the Mediterranean.
 
originally posted by BJ:
We are going through a very unfortunate period where people are associating dirty cellars and low SO2 with natural wines and it is resulting in brett flawed wines everywhere, on the par with CENSORized oak fruit bombs. I am so fucking sick of pouring wines down the sink. I'm done with it.
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I sympathize, but the last 3-5 years I've been encountering what you might call the flip side of the "natural" coin - winemakers who are competent and wedded to low/no SO2 winemaking, who minimize oxygen exposure to compensate; resulting in bottles that are charmless, undeveloped and overly reductive. They may turn into swans down the road, but I suspect most will be drunk long before.
 
The thing I find most alarming is that producers who typically have not had brett issues are starting to show up with them - more mainline low volume producers. For example last night opened an 06 Chave Mon Coeur, pretty much undrinkable.
 
"Natural" is a trap... do this, don't do that, instead of heeding the terroir. Maybe there are plots of dirt that don't do better au naturel?
 
originally posted by BJ:
We are going through a very unfortunate period where people are associating dirty cellars and low SO2 with natural wines and it is resulting in brett flawed wines everywhere, on the par with CENSORized oak fruit bombs. I am so fucking sick of pouring wines down the sink. I'm done with it.

....I'm totally with you on this!

Karen
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originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
"Natural" is a trap... do this, don't do that, instead of heeding the terroir. Maybe there are plots of dirt that don't do better au naturel?
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Perhaps to attempt an answer to the last question first: there are plenty of low-lying deep-alluvial-soil grape growing areas where grapes don't belong. Their terroir might exist but it is boring. So if they have less to express, perhaps it matters less. But there is no natural wine rule book so I'm not sure I agree it is a trap. Suffice to say I look for minimal intervention, complexity and minimal defects (as many of us do).
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
"Natural" is a trap... do this, don't do that, instead of heeding the terroir. Maybe there are plots of dirt that don't do better au naturel?
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Hmmm, the basic idea behind natural wine is "nothing added, nothing subtracted", which I would translate as "do nothing" rather than "do this, don't do that." The latter, which involves the picking and choosing of what to do and what not to do, is how I would describe industrial wine.

Before anyone screams, of course it's not "do nothing" in the ultimate (otiose) sense, but rather do nothing other than the bare essentials: picking the acceptably-grown (judgment required) grapes at some reasonable (judgment required) point, sorting, pressing, and fermenting for an appropriate (judgment required) amount of time.

As for terroir, if by this we mean the man-free definition, it seems to me self-evident that it will manifest best where interference is least, as long as minimal intervention doesn't result in defects that mask it (a fundamental proviso). If you're making natural wine in a place too hot for this, perhaps you shouldn't be. These would be the "plots of dirt that don't do better au naturel."

Natural wine requires a handful of mandatory judgment calls (that make literal-minded people decry the term) but its goal should be the clearest possible terroir expression. That requires it to be essentially defect-free, without the so-called natural footprint (if by that we mean some combination of the defects we have come to expect from sulfur free or low sulfur wine).
 
originally posted by mark e:
originally posted by BJ:
I am so fucking sick of pouring wines down the sink. I'm done with it.

The winemakers need to clean it up. And honestly Beaujolais is a real problem area.
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Guignier Au bon grès Fleurie 2014 went down teh fatsink owing to massive levels of VA. Buhmmmmer. And not cheap.
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They're really good as vinegar, I find. The mother has to be robust, of course, otherwise you get a one-dimensional vinegar.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
"Natural" is a trap... do this, don't do that, instead of heeding the terroir. Maybe there are plots of dirt that don't do better au naturel?
Click to expand...

Hmmm, the basic idea behind natural wine is "nothing added, nothing subtracted", which I would translate as "do nothing" rather than "do this, don't do that." The latter, which involves the picking and choosing of what to do and what not to do, is how I would describe industrial wine.

Before anyone screams, of course it's not "do nothing" in the ultimate (otiose) sense, but rather do nothing other than the bare essentials: picking the acceptably-grown (judgment required) grapes at some reasonable (judgment required) point, sorting, pressing, and fermenting for an appropriate (judgment required) amount of time.

As for terroir, if by this we mean the man-free definition, it seems to me self-evident that it will manifest best where interference is least, as long as minimal intervention doesn't result in defects that mask it (a fundamental proviso). If you're making natural wine in a place too hot for this, perhaps you shouldn't be. These would be the "plots of dirt that don't do better au naturel."

Natural wine requires a handful of mandatory judgment calls (that make literal-minded people decry the term) but its goal should be the clearest possible terroir expression. That requires it to be essentially defect-free, without the so-called natural footprint (if by that we mean some combination of the defects we have come to expect from sulfur free or low sulfur wine).
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This argument may show why taking terroir to mean environmental and agricultural conditions only may be part of the problem. If natural wine eschews regional specific winemaking practices (the cultural and historical elements of terroir), it will have a tendency to judge all wines by a single, procrustean standard, which, of course, produces judgments about where wine should be made. We taste relativists don't make such judgments except to the extent of choosing the wines we prefer. Terroir was always a cultural and historical and not a scientific concept.
 
Interesting point. Region-specific winemaking practices are not random but evolved over time in response to environmental and agricultural conditions, so that if one buys the premise (as I do) that a non-faulty natural wine would express environmental and agricultural conditions better than a wine with interventions and/or corrections, the result should dovetail with region-specific winemaking practices.

An exception would be new oak, a common region-specific winemaking practice that can only mask environmental and agricultural conditions.
 
If you think history and culture evolve rationally to get the best out of surrounding conditions, you are reading different histories than I do. History and culture are surds that regularly confronts philosophic theories.
 
Talked about at the level of generalities that Iverson does (ignoring his fan boy movie analysis), I agree entirely with the principles. He is, of course, right that the attempt to grow popular varieties in places unsuitable to them is bound to lead to wine like beverages. The problem is when the theory is applied in an attempt to account for every detail of winemaking and every taste is subjected to a theoretical explanation, one frequently as enforcing as the techniques used to grow varieties where in places that don't really work well for them.

An example that doesn't get discussed here. I prefer Southern Rhone wines that are not made with destemming. Destemming has been widespread really for some time now, though I'm pretty sure it wasn't widespread say 50 years ago. It is, in some obvious way, an intervention. I don't think it gets in the way of terroir or variety. It just takes some interesting elements out of the wine that might otherwise be there in order to eliminate harsher stem tannins (as I understand the reason), but it does do that and so, from a theoretical prespective, could be condemnable. Should I turn this preference into a vital principal? What about when I find out that Overnoy destemmed? Do I now need to disavow I wine I liked? What if I were to find out that CdP had actually been destemming since before it was declared an appelation? Should I now change my mind about my preferences? I'd prefer to stick to my original view: it won't ruin a wine to destem but it reduces the expression of the variety out of a misplaced fear of green tannins. Getting more theoretical than that will lead me into Thomistic argumetation, a process I love, but not a method by which I lead my life.
 
I'm fairly brett averse but I do sometimes have difficulty distinguishing between brett and reduction.

I'm curious about what we know about "baby diaper" and "mouse". I had always associated "baby diaper" with brett of some sort and that "mouse" was a different kind of bacteriological problem.

However, I recently ran into "baby diaper" in two wines on separate occasions. The first was a 2015 Clos Rouge Gorge VV which was inspired by an awesome bottle of 2014 in Montreal about a year or so ago. There was a lot of good stuff going on, but I found the "baby diaper" too distracting. Re-corked in the cellar and tasted the next day and the mouse was in the house.

Does anyone know the relationship between brett, "baby diaper" and "mouse"? Is there any or are they all separate bacteria?
 
originally posted by VLM:
I'm fairly brett averse but I do sometimes have difficulty distinguishing between brett and reduction.

I'm curious about what we know about "baby diaper" and "mouse". I had always associated "baby diaper" with brett of some sort and that "mouse" was a different kind of bacteriological problem.

However, I recently ran into "baby diaper" in two wines on separate occasions. The first was a 2015 Clos Rouge Gorge VV which was inspired by an awesome bottle of 2014 in Montreal about a year or so ago. There was a lot of good stuff going on, but I found the "baby diaper" too distracting. Re-corked in the cellar and tasted the next day and the mouse was in the house.

Does anyone know the relationship between brett, "baby diaper" and "mouse"? Is there any or are they all separate bacteria?
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i doubt that you can do much better than jamie goode, the science of wine, second edition, section 2 in the winery, chapter 18 brettanomyces
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Should I turn this preference into a vital principal?
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That's the crux of it. If you're going to have a "Jonathan Loesberg Wine" revolution, well, you'll need to assert some iron-bound principles so the vague masses can vaguely follow it.

I think that's where the word 'natural' has gone. In order to shut-up the idiots who say, "But it's all natural," one draws a bright line: these techniques are in, these techniques are out. And that's when your pretty concept starts getting pock-marked with exceptions....
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
If you think history and culture evolve rationally to get the best out of surrounding conditions, you are reading different histories than I do. History and culture are surds that regularly confronts philosophic theories.
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A slower reading will show that I was not being deterministic, but saying that the choice of what variety to plant and how to vinify it is not random culture, but culture that in some manner evolved from dealing with soil and climate conditions.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
The Thunder God opined a little while ago on this topic. (Wine discussion starts about 1/3 of the way down.) It is a good read.
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Thanks for that, I am basically on the same page; plus he uses terroir as I do.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Talked about at the level of generalities that Iverson does (ignoring his fan boy movie analysis), I agree entirely with the principles. He is, of course, right that the attempt to grow popular varieties in places unsuitable to them is bound to lead to wine like beverages. The problem is when the theory is applied in an attempt to account for every detail of winemaking and every taste is subjected to a theoretical explanation, one frequently as enforcing as the techniques used to grow varieties where in places that don't really work well for them.

An example that doesn't get discussed here. I prefer Southern Rhone wines that are not made with destemming. Destemming has been widespread really for some time now, though I'm pretty sure it wasn't widespread say 50 years ago. It is, in some obvious way, an intervention. I don't think it gets in the way of terroir or variety. It just takes some interesting elements out of the wine that might otherwise be there in order to eliminate harsher stem tannins (as I understand the reason), but it does do that and so, from a theoretical prespective, could be condemnable. Should I turn this preference into a vital principal? What about when I find out that Overnoy destemmed? Do I now need to disavow I wine I liked? What if I were to find out that CdP had actually been destemming since before it was declared an appelation? Should I now change my mind about my preferences? I'd prefer to stick to my original view: it won't ruin a wine to destem but it reduces the expression of the variety out of a misplaced fear of green tannins. Getting more theoretical than that will lead me into Thomistic argumetation, a process I love, but not a method by which I lead my life.
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Every definition of natural that I've encountered treats destemming as not an intervention, but I see your point. Other examples might be batonnage and lees aging, which pass the nothing added/nothing subtracted test, but could be called interventions.
 
When people say "La Tache and Romanée Conti are slightly different terroirs," or "the section of Clos de Vougeot closer to Musigny is a better terroir," or "Drouhin Chambolle 1er is a mix of four different terroirs, so expresses particularly well the general concept of Chambolle," it seems pretty clear that people are not talking about cultural or historic differences, but about the delimited concept derived from terre.

I see including man in terroir as akin to including Sociology, Anthropology and Political Science in Geology. For the sum of place, climate, vine, variety, history and culture, it may be better to the French equivalent of kit & caboodle, the whole shebang or everything but the kitchen sink; perhaps vertical integration if one wants to get business-like or weltanschauung if one wants to be philosophical.

Any speculation about whether a sufficiently fault-free natural wine is the most transparent expression of terroir requires the "limited" definition, otherwise it makes no sense. If a certain place has a culture and history of intervention and new oak and that culture and history is included in terroir, then a natural wine stands no chance of expressing it.
 
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