Your Faults, My Flaws!

00:00:00: [Music]

00:00:14: This is just another wine podcast.

00:00:17: Just another wine podcast. What a beautiful name for a wine podcast.

00:00:22: So you're here with me, Jamie Good.

00:00:26: And Emily Harman.

00:00:27: And Doug Rigg.

00:00:29: And today we're going to be talking about your false life laws.

00:00:36: And stop laughing at me. It's just something an inspiration I had.

00:00:40: This is Doug's title, but it's a topic that I really love.

00:00:43: And the briefing he gave us, is there a clear line in the sand between faults or flaws?

00:00:50: Or is it blurred by personal taste?

00:00:52: Should we examine flavour as something apart from the wine,

00:00:55: being the aggregates of chemical and microbiological transformation?

00:01:00: That's a beautiful way of putting it. You've got a way with words.

00:01:02: What did you study at university?

00:01:04: Words, words, words, words.

00:01:07: English words?

00:01:08: That's what Hamlet said.

00:01:11: Yeah, when Polonius asked him what he's studying, he said, "Words, words, words, words, words."

00:01:16: Yeah, no. I like languages.

00:01:22: I also love discussing faults and flaws, because I've lived in a binary world in wine,

00:01:31: I guess we all have, in which if it's not perfect, it's faulty.

00:01:38: There's no other way of looking at it.

00:01:41: And I'm a relative kind of guy. I believe in Einstein.

00:01:45: I believe in relativity.

00:01:48: I believe that a lot of what we interpret are according to our palette,

00:01:54: that certain faults could well be flaws.

00:01:57: And think about it. Are human beings perfect?

00:02:02: Are we symmetrical? No, we're flawed.

00:02:05: And actually, our flaws are what make us beautiful.

00:02:08: And I would submit, here's my proposition for the day,

00:02:11: and you can argue with it, and we'll argue around it,

00:02:14: is that flaws truly are what make wine unique and beautiful.

00:02:19: And if every wine was robotically faultless,

00:02:23: then it would be splendidly null, imperfectly perfect.

00:02:28: There you are. Some more words.

00:02:30: It's difficult to follow up after that.

00:02:32: I just quoted Tennyson.

00:02:34: I just quoted Tennyson.

00:02:35: I know, I'm just saying.

00:02:36: End of episode.

00:02:38: No, no, no. This is a good starting point.

00:02:40: Emily, how do you feel about the issue of wine faults?

00:02:43: I mean-- You've been a sommelier.

00:02:44: So this is the thing that I can--

00:02:46: It's very interesting, is that can you think of any other product where,

00:02:50: you know, when presenting it to the customer,

00:02:52: you give them a little bit to see if there's a problem?

00:02:55: Like when you bring your food to the table,

00:02:57: you don't bring them a little--

00:02:58: cut a little bit of the steak off and just taste the steak as a steak.

00:03:01: I know. It's very interesting.

00:03:03: And it's funny because if you think about cheese, for example,

00:03:06: and all of the vast range of flavors and aromas

00:03:11: that actually you isolate them on their own,

00:03:14: they're quite challenging in cheese,

00:03:15: but they're very widely accepted, but not in wine.

00:03:18: So, yeah, I think definitely agreeing with Doug on the binary world.

00:03:25: And I think, again, it's a little bit similar

00:03:28: to what we discussed in the first episode

00:03:30: of sort of the strong views on natural wine.

00:03:32: And there is this huge space between each of those polars,

00:03:35: maybe not with everything, but then we--

00:03:37: There's a lot of factors.

00:03:38: I mean, you've written the book on this, right?

00:03:39: So I'm treading it carefully with what I'm saying.

00:03:42: We have this huge space of certain floors

00:03:45: that I think can add--

00:03:47: like volatile acidity-- can add complexity.

00:03:50: You know, when you look at other industries like

00:03:54: floristry, for example,

00:03:55: putting jasmine into a bunch of flowers,

00:03:57: which is very high on the chemical note.

00:04:00: Indole, I think we've talked about this before,

00:04:01: can help lift other floral tones in the bouquet.

00:04:05: And it can be a benefit to the bouquet of flowers

00:04:08: to add more complexity and add more aroma.

00:04:10: And I see that in wine.

00:04:12: I find that very intriguing.

00:04:13: And I think a little bit of my experience of wine

00:04:15: or, let's say, my window of tolerance for flaws and faults,

00:04:20: right?

00:04:21: Because I think we all have a different window

00:04:22: of tolerance for these things.

00:04:24: We also have different sensitivities and perception.

00:04:26: And some of us don't have any perception with it, right?

00:04:29: But for me, I think of it a little bit like that,

00:04:31: of meeting a person.

00:04:33: I like the things that are imperfect.

00:04:35: I like a lack of symmetry on a face.

00:04:37: I'm very intrigued by something that's

00:04:40: very specific and unique to that individual.

00:04:42: And I find it very, very fascinating to sort of dig away.

00:04:45: But again, it's like too much of something is too much, right?

00:04:49: So it's like finding that spot of intrigue and interest

00:04:53: without it being overwhelming.

00:04:54: But that applies on the flip side of something

00:04:57: being very sterile and industrial for me, too,

00:05:00: where it's lacking soul.

00:05:01: I'm often shown wines at the moment in the Netherlands,

00:05:05: the UK, Austria, and Germany for different consultancy

00:05:07: products.

00:05:07: And I'm often put lots of different wines in front of me.

00:05:10: And then you have these wines that are just

00:05:11: like perfectly made.

00:05:13: You know, you're like, yes, this does

00:05:14: take that taste like Norella Mascholese from Etna.

00:05:17: And yeah, I can kind of tell this is from volcanic soil,

00:05:20: and it's textbook and everything else.

00:05:21: But do I want to drink another glass?

00:05:23: Am I going to remember that?

00:05:24: Does it stay with me?

00:05:25: What's the resonance of that wine?

00:05:27: And I feel that sometimes a wine with flaws or faults,

00:05:31: it can have more of this resonant character that really stays

00:05:34: with me that I find intriguing.

00:05:35: Of course, I'm not talking about cork taint when I'm talking

00:05:38: about this because the threshold for that is very low

00:05:41: for me.

00:05:42: Mousiness is the other one.

00:05:43: But you know, Bretanomyces, VA, these are all things

00:05:46: that actually I can find can add an intriguing note that I

00:05:50: really appreciate.

00:05:51: That's my two cents.

00:05:52: Jamie, we've discussed, I know, brat, because I think there

00:05:55: was a period of time when a lot of wine writers particularly

00:05:59: objected to Bretanomyces in wines.

00:06:04: And weirdly, I've always found that in some wines,

00:06:08: it's like a seasoning that enhances certain flavors,

00:06:11: like sort of umami or gaminess or sort of a bacon-y thing,

00:06:14: which I actually really like.

00:06:16: In certain wines, for example, Merlot, I really like it

00:06:21: because it gives almost like a rhone character.

00:06:23: I quite like it in other grape varieties, Grenache.

00:06:27: But I don't like it in Pinot Noir because I think there's

00:06:30: a delicate grape, which is very much about translating

00:06:34: terroir and as a sort of primary character.

00:06:37: And I just think that Bret would perhaps spoil that character.

00:06:41: What do you think, Jamie?

00:06:43: I think I agree with you in that sense.

00:06:44: I think that I remember my first encounter, when I first got

00:06:48: into wine, I was drinking wine without really understanding

00:06:51: what I was drinking.

00:06:52: But I had very strong ideas, but I liked and didn't like.

00:06:55: I remember somebody bought around a, I read about Domaine

00:06:58: Ruchon from the Provence and I got hold of a bottle and I drank

00:07:04: it and it was like what I recognize now as Britannomyces was

00:07:08: very strong and savory.

00:07:10: And then a friend, Nigel, came to dinner and he bought a bottle

00:07:13: of Crozo Mettage and it was like the same gamey sort of

00:07:17: animally, you know, horsey sort of character.

00:07:20: And there's a novice one drink, I didn't like that at all.

00:07:22: So it's a firm no from me.

00:07:25: And then I began to learn about what these different faults

00:07:28: were.

00:07:29: And it's like sometimes when you learn to recognize a fault

00:07:34: compound, then whenever you spot it, the first thing you do

00:07:38: is reject the wine because you've spotted the fault compound

00:07:40: without asking, well, how does it work in that context?

00:07:43: Now, if I was a winemaker, I'd do everything I could to avoid

00:07:47: Britannomyces, you know, because I think it can be

00:07:50: dominant feature.

00:07:51: It's very hard to control.

00:07:53: It's something that can blur the boundaries of terroir.

00:07:58: You can have a Bretty wine that tastes like many other

00:08:01: Bretty wines.

00:08:02: But at the same time, some people make wines, they have,

00:08:06: you can recognize, if you look carefully, the flavors,

00:08:09: compounds that come from Britannomyces, but they work

00:08:12: really well.

00:08:12: And I remember somebody doing an analysis when I was first

00:08:15: getting into wine on the bulletin board, some famous

00:08:18: ministers of Boca style.

00:08:19: And they looked at 4EP, which is 4th ethylphenol, which is a

00:08:22: compound that's only produced by Britannomyces in wine.

00:08:27: And they were off the charts these levels.

00:08:29: Yet these were wines, I think it was in 1990 or something,

00:08:32: that these are wines that were highly sought after by

00:08:34: collectors.

00:08:35: And then Sam Harrop, his MW dissertation, looked at

00:08:40: syrup in Britannomyces and we did a tasting where we were

00:08:43: tasting all these famous syrup wines blind and we had to

00:08:46: to say whether we thought they were Bretty or not.

00:08:49: And then he went and did an analysis of all those wines

00:08:52: of 4EP to see whether they were Bretty or not.

00:08:55: And some very famous names had above threshold levels of

00:08:58: 4EP.

00:08:59: And so I think that sometimes Britannomyces can be

00:09:04: interesting.

00:09:05: It's something I wouldn't want if I was making wine,

00:09:07: but sometimes it can be a complexing fact.

00:09:10: But it seems to manifest itself differently in different

00:09:12: wines as well.

00:09:13: So sometimes I'll be drinking a wine and enjoying it.

00:09:16: And someone will say, "Oh, this is a bit Bretty."

00:09:17: And I'll say, "Oh, maybe it is.

00:09:18: Oh, okay."

00:09:20: So this is one of the examples of faults that I think.

00:09:23: Don't you think VA can be like that too sometimes?

00:09:25: I totally can.

00:09:26: I'm not quite sensitive to VA in a sense.

00:09:27: And I spot it and I go, "Oof, VA."

00:09:29: But then, I think, "Oh, wait a minute.

00:09:33: Yeah, I recognise the VA.

00:09:34: Does it mean I have to reject the wine?

00:09:35: Or can I try and appreciate this wine?"

00:09:37: With the characters it's got.

00:09:39: Don't some producers want to work with VA because if you're

00:09:43: in a hot climate, there's sort of like almost a vinegary,

00:09:47: and we're going to say the word right.

00:09:48: But is it...

00:09:50: There's an element which gives a balsamic note to the wine,

00:09:53: which offsets the sort of maybe slightly baked fruit character.

00:09:59: It gives it some definition.

00:10:01: It's interesting.

00:10:02: And VA gives a sweet acidity as well.

00:10:05: There's a sweetness it brings.

00:10:07: So a little bit of VA, maybe to the point where it's below the

00:10:11: recognition threshold, will actually help the wine to be

00:10:14: more interesting.

00:10:15: And then I remember a seminar at one of your real wine fairs,

00:10:18: by some dude from Harga.

00:10:20: Chad Stock, who is actually making three deliberately

00:10:24: Bretty wines.

00:10:24: Wasn't it like, "I like a bit of VA.

00:10:26: The name of the wine" or something like that?

00:10:28: It's like what it is, is that he's saying that VA presents

00:10:31: differently.

00:10:32: So if you've just got the acetic acid element,

00:10:34: that can be really quite nice.

00:10:37: But if you've got ethyl acetate, which is the other that comes along with

00:10:40: then ethyl acetate can be quite unpleasant.

00:10:43: So it's like, I think that was his point, that there's

00:10:47: different sorts of VA.

00:10:48: There's a very nuanced look, the issue of VA.

00:10:51: But super interesting.

00:10:53: He also did the same with Bret, actually.

00:10:55: And he played with Bret, vineyard Bret, which for example,

00:10:59: we work with a producer.

00:11:01: And one vineyard always presents Bretty wines, but the other ones don't.

00:11:06: And I think one of the, perhaps the misnomers or the misunderstandings is

00:11:09: people say it's bad hygiene in the winery, but there can be extraneous factors

00:11:15: that give you the terroir of Bret or Bret.

00:11:19: Yeah.

00:11:20: But as a flavouring agent, I mean, after all, Bret is used in beers.

00:11:23: We have Bret beers, don't we?

00:11:24: We like it in Belgian.

00:11:27: Yeah, we like it in Belgian beers.

00:11:28: And as Emily said earlier, like we don't mind cheese running across the table

00:11:32: with alacrity.

00:11:34: So, you know, we like a bit of wild sometimes.

00:11:37: And actually, if it pushes the envelope in wine, it can be really exciting.

00:11:41: You wouldn't necessarily want to drink these wines all the time.

00:11:45: But I think in terms of expanding your flavour vocabulary,

00:11:48: it's really intriguing and also to understand why it happens, when it happens,

00:11:53: and whether it adds a little accent to the wine that might be misogynistic.

00:11:59: Now we're running into this concept of Wabi Sabi, the Japanese concept of Wabi Sabi,

00:12:04: the idea that small floors can bring out beauty in very interesting ways.

00:12:08: And I think one of these ideas would be, for instance, if you're in an old country house,

00:12:15: you know, you're in the hallway.

00:12:16: You give it perfect beams running in the ceiling.

00:12:18: You hear the ticking of the grandfather clock or the grandmother clock.

00:12:22: I don't know if there's silence.

00:12:23: There's silence, yes.

00:12:24: So that ticking, so that imperfection, something breaking the silence,

00:12:28: makes you realise it's silent.

00:12:29: A lot of the drip, you know, a pour of water, you hear a drip.

00:12:33: It's very little noise.

00:12:38: That's an imperfection.

00:12:39: It's a flaw.

00:12:40: It's breaking the science, but it helps you to understand the silence.

00:12:43: And I think with wine,

00:12:44: I think about that sometimes.

00:12:46: I think that a totally clean, pure fruity wine is like, what's the point?

00:12:51: We need something else there.

00:12:53: We need the...

00:12:54: It's like when I was, again, when I was, I remember going to this shop in Wellington,

00:12:59: I just started getting interesting wine.

00:13:00: And I was going there and there was a, it was called the Wine House.

00:13:03: And I'd go in and say to the owners, Morvin and Sue, I'd say,

00:13:07: this is what I found about the last wine.

00:13:10: This is what I really would like to find in this wine.

00:13:12: What about this wine?

00:13:13: And sometimes I went to try and try a famous wine.

00:13:16: They go, oh, no, you're not ready for that.

00:13:17: Don't go for that yet.

00:13:17: Try this.

00:13:18: And then one day I went in, I just had this Mount Barker, 1985, Forest Hill Shearers.

00:13:25: And the thing I loved about it was smooth and sweet, the tannins.

00:13:28: So I went, I want something smooth, no tannin, a red wine, smooth, no tannin,

00:13:33: really fruity and the proprietor said,

00:13:38: you sure you wouldn't rather just have some fruit juice?

00:13:41: And it's like the idea of being that what I was looking for is like,

00:13:44: I was avoiding things that maybe were a little challenging, like tannin.

00:13:47: As I just wanted the joy of the pleasure of the sweet fruit,

00:13:51: but without the other things in the wine, the sweet fruit is meaningless.

00:13:54: So the sweet fruit on its own is fruity and that's like delicious.

00:13:58: But it's like having baby bell cheese.

00:14:01: What's the point?

00:14:02: You know, if you want cheese, you want the flavors, different flavors,

00:14:05: sometimes challenging flavors.

00:14:07: And you need that mix of the joyful and immediately gratifying

00:14:14: with things that are maybe a little bit more elusive and difficult to understand.

00:14:18: This is like the palette of babies.

00:14:19: Like babies like sweet things and round things and soft things

00:14:23: and fruity things and sugary things.

00:14:25: But they also like the other things.

00:14:26: They like over curled.

00:14:27: No, I think it's more about actually how the flavor receptors develop

00:14:32: because a young child doesn't, I think the bitterness is like one of the first things

00:14:37: that they can taste.

00:14:38: So that's why there's this curiosity towards lemon.

00:14:41: So it's something about how the taste buds and everything develop,

00:14:44: which is why they don't have the same reaction to lemon.

00:14:49: Maybe it's machine learning as well.

00:14:50: It's the idea is they're trying to put as many data points together

00:14:53: about what the world out there is like to understand the world outside

00:14:56: in terms of objects.

00:14:57: So I think this is to smell is very much like that.

00:15:00: We can go into a crowded marketplace and recognize the smell of pizza over there

00:15:04: and coffee over here.

00:15:05: Even all these molecules are flying around in the air.

00:15:08: We've learned to recognize that when these molecules co-occur together,

00:15:11: you know, with a certain latitude,

00:15:12: because there's lots of different smells of coffee,

00:15:14: we recognize it as coffee as an object, as a smell object in that sense.

00:15:18: And we'll recognize pizza or recognize someone, you know,

00:15:22: with beef on the grill or something.

00:15:25: You can smell that.

00:15:26: And it's like they can be very many different variations around that theme,

00:15:29: but we categorize them as this particular theme.

00:15:32: And I think that's really interesting.

00:15:33: So maybe what you're doing with flavor is you're learning to recognize things

00:15:37: in terms of objects of flavor.

00:15:39: So we're always on the lookout to see new flavor combinations go together.

00:15:43: But when we get something that's a little disjointed,

00:15:46: that causes us the error signal comes up.

00:15:49: So what's that?

00:15:50: And that's where I think it's with this sense of flaws.

00:15:54: You know, some people are willing to go into a slightly difficult place,

00:15:58: an unusual place and have new experiences.

00:16:01: Other people, I think, want to stay in a comfortable place

00:16:04: that they've learned to recognize this as wine.

00:16:07: Well, don't orange wines come into this,

00:16:10: because I think when orange wines appeared, you know,

00:16:13: more than just one isolated example,

00:16:16: people looked at the color, said, "That's wrong.

00:16:19: It's not a white wine.

00:16:20: You know, what's wrong with it?

00:16:21: Is it oxidized?"

00:16:22: That was the first instinct, because they'd not seen a color,

00:16:25: they had not had no reference point to that color.

00:16:29: So automatically suspicious, they tried the wine.

00:16:32: Where's the acidity?

00:16:34: It's the bitterness.

00:16:35: Bitterness is not something you necessarily associate

00:16:37: with white wines if you're, if you like your, I don't know,

00:16:40: whatever white wines you like.

00:16:42: You're looking for acidity by definition.

00:16:46: So already your taste buds are discombobulated.

00:16:49: You think it's faulty because you don't recognize it.

00:16:52: Now I think people are much more experienced.

00:16:55: They've tried a wider range of wines.

00:16:57: They would say, "Well, it's in that category,

00:16:59: even though I may not like it."

00:17:01: I recognize it.

00:17:03: It has a place on a list so much so that orange wines

00:17:07: now demand their own section on a list.

00:17:10: But before then, you know, like I think when we opened Terroir,

00:17:13: someone ordered orange wine.

00:17:16: I don't know, they didn't know they were ordering orange wine.

00:17:18: They thought they were opening,

00:17:19: ordering a white malvasia from Lastoppa.

00:17:22: Bottle came, was decanted into a craft,

00:17:26: came to the table and there was this almost free-salt of shock.

00:17:30: Like what the hell is that?

00:17:32: But the Lastoppa white wines, that's pretty extreme as well.

00:17:35: They often quite brety as well.

00:17:37: There's a white wine with Pratana Micey.

00:17:38: And quite a bit of VA as well.

00:17:40: And it's not a beginner's wine.

00:17:42: And it is decanted.

00:17:43: No, I don't think it's a beginner's wine.

00:17:44: And it is decanted and served at room temperature.

00:17:47: And it was like all your, all your,

00:17:49: all your, all your favorite whammy's at once.

00:17:52: Anyway, this person looked at it and it's appointed.

00:17:56: And then said, that's not what I ordered.

00:17:58: I ordered a white wine.

00:17:59: And there was a customer sitting at the next table, turned around and said,

00:18:02: that is what is known as an orange wine.

00:18:05: Is it achieved by skin contact with the, the must?

00:18:08: I was thinking like, the customer's doing my job for me, you know,

00:18:11: and the guy accepted it and drank it.

00:18:15: And I thought, it's a miracle that, that people are open-minded.

00:18:18: We should perhaps give people credit for being open-minded.

00:18:21: But I think once you have explained to you,

00:18:25: what's going on, cognitively, you come to terms with it.

00:18:29: Or you may not like it, but you come to terms with the idea

00:18:32: that the wine is meant to be like that.

00:18:35: And therefore the associated tastes that you get.

00:18:39: And as a sommelier, I always tell people,

00:18:42: gave them an indication of what it would taste like.

00:18:44: I said, look, you taste it.

00:18:46: This is sort of the thing you'll be tasting.

00:18:48: This is why you're tasting it.

00:18:50: But if you don't like it, don't, you know,

00:18:51: you don't have to drink it.

00:18:52: It's not a contract.

00:18:54: And people, as I say, became much more accepting of the wine

00:18:58: because they felt confidence that it was meant to be

00:19:02: the way it was meant to be.

00:19:03: And I think with forts and floors,

00:19:07: to try to bring it back to the subject,

00:19:08: I think this is the same thing.

00:19:10: It's like, if you point out something as a floor,

00:19:12: as a natural floor, is a result of not filtering

00:19:16: or skin contact or whatever.

00:19:19: And then that floors are this aesthetic element

00:19:23: that Jamie was talking about, the Wabi-Sabi element.

00:19:26: They have this kind of beauty in themselves.

00:19:29: People will probably more likely to accept that.

00:19:31: If they think it's a fort, then they begin to worry about it.

00:19:36: And then it becomes amplified.

00:19:38: And if the only fort they know is caulk-taint,

00:19:41: even if it's an oxidized wine or a nasty wine,

00:19:45: they'll say it's caulked because they clutch on

00:19:48: to the fort as a security blanket.

00:19:51: And I think what we're going to discuss is,

00:19:54: are there some forts which are absolute,

00:19:58: others which are semi-absolute, but more a matter of taste,

00:20:02: and ones which are actually not forts at all,

00:20:05: but something that enhances the wine

00:20:07: or has the capacity to enhance the wine?

00:20:09: I think reduction is interesting.

00:20:12: So when we're talking about reduction,

00:20:13: we're talking about the presence of vault or sulfur compounds in wine.

00:20:16: So obviously, if you smell hydrogen sulfide,

00:20:18: which is the eggy, drayiny sort of smell, that's a fault.

00:20:23: I don't think anyone can like that.

00:20:25: It's what stink bombs are made of, hydrogen sulfide.

00:20:29: But when it's more complex, sulfides or thials,

00:20:32: or the classic example being that matchstick,

00:20:36: struck flint character often found in white wines,

00:20:40: I think that can be a very positive thing.

00:20:42: It's like a seasoning, I guess you'd say.

00:20:45: So a little bit in the right context can be really good.

00:20:47: But if it becomes an artifact, then it's exaggerated.

00:20:52: It's like oak.

00:20:54: I know a winemaker says that if you can spot oak in a wine,

00:20:58: it's a fault.

00:20:59: That's an opinion, you know?

00:21:01: And I think there's some support for that opinion

00:21:03: that you don't want to be tasting oak.

00:21:06: No.

00:21:07: A French forest in a bottle of wine,

00:21:09: but oak can have an enhancing effect

00:21:11: when it's at the right sort of level.

00:21:13: I think the one thing that we would say

00:21:15: is always a fault is cork taint.

00:21:17: If you can perceive it in the wine,

00:21:20: you can't drink that wine.

00:21:21: Enjoy it.

00:21:22: You'd have to be very desperate for the alcohol hit

00:21:24: to be able to drink a corky wine.

00:21:26: But reduction, I think, is very interesting

00:21:28: because reduction is one of those ones where

00:21:30: I think it can be very complexing in the right context.

00:21:34: But it can bind to the wine as well.

00:21:37: But that's when it becomes a fault, right?

00:21:39: Yes.

00:21:39: So reduction, if it can dissipate,

00:21:42: if you can leave it,

00:21:45: if you can leave it, I don't know,

00:21:46: to carafe it or do something

00:21:49: and remove that reduction,

00:21:52: I think it and the wine comes out.

00:21:54: That's fine.

00:21:55: There are reductive elements.

00:21:56: We use the word reductive as a wine description

00:21:59: of something which focuses like a sense of minerality,

00:22:03: for example, in certain wines.

00:22:04: And it still has that matchstick element to it,

00:22:06: but it's not a sort of burning element.

00:22:09: But I want to come into my pet subject, sulfur.

00:22:14: Like, I was born in a puff of sulfur, obviously.

00:22:16: I find when I...

00:22:20: That should be a T-shirt.

00:22:21: Yes.

00:22:22: No, I know people where T-shirts would say,

00:22:25: "I am a Bret Nazi."

00:22:27: So I can say, "I'm a sulfur Nazi."

00:22:29: So, sulfites, if you could detect the sulfites,

00:22:31: you don't like it?

00:22:32: For me, if they burn the wine.

00:22:34: And...

00:22:34: So I don't ever...

00:22:36: I can't remember the last one I had where I said,

00:22:38: "Oh, I'm tasting sulfites."

00:22:39: I can.

00:22:41: And...

00:22:41: So this is an interesting discussion

00:22:43: about perception and whether you find something more

00:22:45: if you're looking for it.

00:22:46: And also, maybe I might...

00:22:48: Maybe I'm just not used to looking for it.

00:22:49: I mean, I think before you explain,

00:22:51: because it could be interesting to get your perspective

00:22:53: on this in your explanation,

00:22:54: because as somebody who sells a lot of low sulfur

00:22:58: and sometimes no sulfur wines to restaurants in Germany,

00:23:01: some not.

00:23:03: There's a couple of customers sometimes

00:23:04: that assume the wines have higher sulfites,

00:23:08: where they say, "Oh, we thought the wines were low sulfites."

00:23:10: Right?

00:23:11: But everybody who we work with is...

00:23:13: would be like half of what would even be considered

00:23:15: possible a natural wine fair.

00:23:17: So like added maximum 30, like a...

00:23:20: Max, right?

00:23:21: So then by the time it's been in bottle

00:23:23: and it's already on market,

00:23:24: that's already gone down, right?

00:23:26: But to get that feedback,

00:23:28: sometimes I don't know how to navigate those conversations

00:23:30: because it's a little bit tricky of like...

00:23:32: If you're...

00:23:32: If you're...

00:23:32: If you're...

00:23:32: If somebody...

00:23:33: Free sulfur dioxide is 30 parts.

00:23:36: People can't spot that.

00:23:37: But it's interesting...

00:23:37: So they're not spotting the sulfite.

00:23:38: That's what I mean.

00:23:39: So that's...

00:23:40: So this is where I think there's a lot of ideas

00:23:44: that certain people have around

00:23:46: how to identify sulfites in wines.

00:23:48: So I think it could actually be really interesting

00:23:50: to hear about for you when you're like,

00:23:52: "Hey, this is sulfites. What is that like?"

00:23:54: Because I think there's a lot of

00:23:55: miseducation around the sulfur topic,

00:23:57: and there's a lot of numbers people glass one to.

00:23:59: And I don't know if it's an intre...

00:24:01: That much of an interesting topic

00:24:03: as people make it out to be.

00:24:04: That's my perspective.

00:24:06: But I'd like to know your thoughts.

00:24:08: Okay, well I can approach from various angles.

00:24:10: Firstly, on the science side,

00:24:12: I'm not terribly sure I am confident

00:24:15: about lab analysis because you see lab analysis,

00:24:20: which is incredibly...

00:24:21: might have an incredibly high amount of total sulfites,

00:24:24: like 120, 130, and it doesn't taste like it.

00:24:28: But or are slightly surprisingly low,

00:24:30: and it tastes like it's quite sulfary.

00:24:34: I think it's the...

00:24:36: I think in terms of a sensation,

00:24:39: and this is why I...

00:24:40: I don't equate it with a fault as such,

00:24:43: as just bad winemaking,

00:24:44: which you may say is faulty or not faulty.

00:24:48: But I find it's as a safety net,

00:24:51: it's like too high up.

00:24:53: So when I taste a wine,

00:24:57: I'm looking for energy,

00:24:59: I'm looking for movement,

00:25:00: I'm looking for fluidity.

00:25:01: And I find that sulfur blocks a wine

00:25:05: really early on in the palate.

00:25:06: So it's like it only gets across a part of my tongue

00:25:11: before I get this burning sensation.

00:25:13: This burning sensation burns the fruit,

00:25:15: stops the acidity, the fluidity,

00:25:19: the mouth watering element of the wine.

00:25:20: And to be absolutely honest,

00:25:22: I cannot drink a second glass of it.

00:25:24: I couldn't even drink the first glass of it.

00:25:26: And I find that it's spoiling the wine

00:25:29: because it's not necessary.

00:25:30: It should not be necessary to put sulfides in at that level,

00:25:35: where they're still detectable.

00:25:37: If you put sulfides in wine and they're there,

00:25:40: they're bound to the wine somehow,

00:25:42: and they're fine,

00:25:43: and they focus the wine in a particular way,

00:25:45: and they protect the wine

00:25:46: because they were necessary to protect the wine,

00:25:48: I don't have a problem with that.

00:25:50: What I find is that people use it like seasoning,

00:25:54: like salt without tasting,

00:25:56: whether or not the wine needs it.

00:25:58: And as a result of conventional winemaking,

00:26:02: maps using yeast,

00:26:03: perhaps using other additives,

00:26:05: perhaps filtering,

00:26:06: you destroy anything that is personal,

00:26:08: an individual and singular about the wine.

00:26:12: And therefore, I think that sulfur is in itself not a...

00:26:16: It's a natural compound.

00:26:18: It's an antiseptic.

00:26:20: You know, it can be used,

00:26:21: and it's even used in natural winemaking,

00:26:23: judiciously.

00:26:24: It's just overused and abused in so many cases.

00:26:28: To such an extent,

00:26:29: there is a point that I personally think it's faulty.

00:26:34: And on the very few times I've been invited

00:26:36: on into wine competitions,

00:26:39: and people are saying, "Well, that's Brettie.

00:26:40: "We knock it out.

00:26:41: "We give it like a nothing."

00:26:43: And I say, "Well, fair enough,

00:26:45: "but I can't drink this wine.

00:26:46: "If I can't drink it, I can't recommend it."

00:26:48: So it's a fault, as far as I'm concerned.

00:26:49: What about for undersulfored wines?

00:26:53: Because sometimes there are wines,

00:26:54: you know, the mousy wines, right?

00:26:56: Like where sometimes it would be quite nice, maybe.

00:27:00: Now, I think mousiness is a really interesting topic,

00:27:03: but I think I'm going to intervene here.

00:27:04: With the wine.

00:27:05: And postpone the mousiness discussion

00:27:07: until after we've tried this wine.

00:27:08: So I'm opening a bottle of wine now that I think is really

00:27:11: one of those wines that often gets mentioned

00:27:14: when we talk about is a fault, a fault.

00:27:16: And this bottle of wine is from Lebanon.

00:27:19: It's from the Bekar Valley.

00:27:21: It's Chateau Moussard.

00:27:22: And it's a 2004 vintage.

00:27:24: Oh, it's the red.

00:27:25: Just...

00:27:26: Yes, the Moussard red.

00:27:27: And Emily will tell you whether it's a typical vintage in Mousard.

00:27:33: So in the past...

00:27:34: What's the issue of Moussard?

00:27:36: The past, you know, I've come here as a position

00:27:38: of somebody who loves Moussard

00:27:40: and has bought Moussard in the past quite a lot.

00:27:42: But when I first tried it, you go, wow, that's different.

00:27:45: And I've seen analyses of Moussard

00:27:48: that have shown very high levels of volatile acidity,

00:27:51: but also Britannomises as well.

00:27:52: Like a...

00:27:53: Almost like this is a training tool to tell people

00:27:57: what wines with VA and Britannomises can be like.

00:28:01: Jamie, do you want to tell our...

00:28:03: No, Jamie's just broken the law.

00:28:04: Okay.

00:28:05: Yes, even the cork is faulty in this case.

00:28:09: Do you want to tell our soul listener what VA is?

00:28:14: So, volatile acidity is...

00:28:15: VA is volatile acidity.

00:28:18: So it's produced by bacterial action, acetylbacter.

00:28:22: In...

00:28:24: It can actually start in the vineyard.

00:28:26: You can have grapes coming in with us

00:28:27: and bacterial activity.

00:28:30: Transforming the components in the wine into acetic acid,

00:28:35: which is vinegar, and ethyl acetate,

00:28:38: which is like...

00:28:38: Smells a bit like nail polish remover.

00:28:41: And together, this level can creep up in wine.

00:28:44: All wines will have some level of VA.

00:28:46: But then it's often produced during fermentation

00:28:49: by bacterial action, especially if you allow more oxygening

00:28:53: because that allows the bacteria to grow.

00:28:55: So if you don't top up your barrels enough,

00:28:59: the bacteria can start growing again.

00:29:01: And then you end up with a level that you can get to a level

00:29:04: that's above the threshold.

00:29:05: A regulated amount.

00:29:06: There's a legal limit, but there's a threshold

00:29:10: where you can have VA that you can still spot

00:29:13: as that slightly vinegary lift on the nose

00:29:16: before it gets to be a legal problem.

00:29:19: So good wine making will usually...

00:29:21: Red wine making we're talking about here normally.

00:29:24: But also sweet wines can often have a very high level of VA.

00:29:27: Good wine making will aim to keep the VA level down.

00:29:32: But a little bit can be quite complexing.

00:29:34: Too much...

00:29:36: Well, when is too much too much?

00:29:37: That's the discussion.

00:29:38: Do you find like...

00:29:39: I mean, I find that in certain respects, in red wines,

00:29:43: VA is quite complexing and interesting.

00:29:45: But in white wines, it's sort of a bit beyond the pale.

00:29:48: I don't know whether it's just adding to the perception of acidity or...

00:29:52: Well, often VA comes along with oxidation.

00:29:55: So you get oxidative characters side by side with VA.

00:29:59: So you can't really separate them out sometimes.

00:30:01: So a wine that's a little bit oxidative,

00:30:03: maybe have that bruised apple sort of acetaldehyde character

00:30:06: as well as acetic acid and ethyl acetate.

00:30:10: And so that's a slightly oxidized oxidative character.

00:30:14: You're often getting VA in the mix there as well.

00:30:16: So I'm about to pour this, the Muzar 2004.

00:30:20: Emily, would you like to...

00:30:22: As a sommelier, would you like to just...

00:30:25: Test that?

00:30:26: I'm looking forward to trying this.

00:30:29: The color's good.

00:30:30: This is a 20-year-old wine now.

00:30:38: - Who call it? - It's still got a way ahead of it, eh?

00:30:47: - It's quite useful, isn't it? - Yeah.

00:30:48: - I love the nose. - I love the nose.

00:30:50: - I don't know why I always associate cedars with leavening.

00:30:53: This wine is like I smell like cedar wood and sandalwood

00:30:57: and all sorts of like something exotic notes.

00:31:01: - I find it quite umami as well on the nose,

00:31:03: but there's still a lot of fruit there.

00:31:05: The palate's got quite a good level of concentration.

00:31:09: The acidity's nice and integrated.

00:31:11: The talons are softening, so you can see that it's developing,

00:31:13: but it still has a bit of time ahead of it.

00:31:15: - Spicy, it's a tiny bit earthy.

00:31:17: It's not developed as much as you think.

00:31:18: I don't think there's any VA there that's troubling.

00:31:21: - No. - There's a little lift.

00:31:23: - It's got that earthy almost touch of truffle almost.

00:31:25: - So this is a blend of sans-sauce, cabernet, servignon, and...

00:31:28: - Carignon. - Carignon, yeah.

00:31:30: And the aging's interesting.

00:31:31: So was it a year in concrete, then some time in barrel,

00:31:35: then it goes back to vat?

00:31:36: - Yeah, it's back to stainless and then into bottle, yes.

00:31:38: - Yeah, so I think the varietals are vinified separately,

00:31:41: then they're blended, then they go into vat before bottling.

00:31:44: And you said, usually kept back first,

00:31:46: like how many years at the wine, I think?

00:31:48: - Several years. I mean, I think we're on,

00:31:50: I can't remember, sort of 2018 now, is the current vintage.

00:31:53: - Nice, actually. The more air the wine's getting,

00:31:56: the more the fruit's coming out as well.

00:31:58: Some of those tertiary flavours are taking a little bit more of a backseat.

00:32:02: This also has that balsamic, you kind of know it though,

00:32:04: though, no?

00:32:05: - It's warm, it's a little bit spicy,

00:32:06: it's a tiny little bit earthy,

00:32:08: but it's not in any level, I would say,

00:32:12: I wouldn't call this as being Brett Alamyces.

00:32:15: Maybe there's some there, but I don't think of it as being Brett.

00:32:19: I don't think of V8.

00:32:20: I think of a...

00:32:21: It's got some oxidative characters.

00:32:24: - But that's actually the aging and...

00:32:25: - That's the aging character.

00:32:27: And if you said to me this was from Ryoko, for instance,

00:32:31: I'd say I wouldn't disagree.

00:32:32: It's got a little bit of a character.

00:32:34: - It's got a sort of leathery, almost like provence,

00:32:37: sort of like element to it,

00:32:39: like a little bit of curbs and garrigue,

00:32:41: and a sort of like a warm leathery background,

00:32:43: which is a secondary...

00:32:45: ...horomic.

00:32:47: - And I get a little bit of cherry liquor almost.

00:32:50: - So this is interesting.

00:32:51: So I think maybe we should be cautious about...

00:32:55: - Calling a faulty wine?

00:32:56: - Calling Muzar.

00:32:58: - Doesn't taste very faulty right now.

00:33:00: - There have been vintages in the world.

00:33:02: - And there are some people who dismiss Muzar

00:33:04: without even tasting it, I guess.

00:33:06: - I'm really impressed with this.

00:33:07: I like it a lot.

00:33:09: It's got some warmth.

00:33:10: It's a 14% alcohol.

00:33:12: It's not excessively high.

00:33:14: But it's got some sweetness and warmth.

00:33:16: - It does, but without too much density.

00:33:20: There's still like a lighter touch.

00:33:22: If you think about wines with these varietals...

00:33:25: - They're often soupy and dark.

00:33:27: - Yeah, red wine soup.

00:33:28: Exactly like this jammy soup that you have to wade through.

00:33:31: Whereas there's a digestible characteristic to this.

00:33:35: - I'm really impressed with this.

00:33:36: - The blend of the grapes probably helps as well.

00:33:39: - Yeah, the caragnand.

00:33:40: - Yeah, when you've got Cabernet, it's a backbone.

00:33:42: It's a good backbone to have in terms of giving the wine lift

00:33:45: and acidity, but you've got Sanzo,

00:33:47: which is a very pretty floral grape.

00:33:49: - Sanzo and caragnon, they're both varieties

00:33:52: that just seem to handle hot climates.

00:33:55: The hot vintages very well.

00:33:57: They don't shrivel.

00:33:59: They keep their freshness.

00:34:01: And Cabernet sauvignon is such an adaptable variety.

00:34:05: It can work in cooler climates.

00:34:07: It can work in warmer climates.

00:34:09: And it seems to manage them both quite well.

00:34:12: And so, yeah, this is an impressive wine.

00:34:15: So maybe it's the wrong wine to choose for this discussion,

00:34:19: but it's quite nice and true.

00:34:20: - But maybe it's also great because it's like a myth.

00:34:21: We're myth-busting right now, at least for the 2004 vintage.

00:34:25: Everybody who's on the fence going on.

00:34:27: - Before we opened this, we went and talked about mouse.

00:34:29: Now, mouse is the fault of our times.

00:34:32: I'd never heard of it until I started experiencing it.

00:34:35: And I went and studied what it's about.

00:34:38: And I remember speaking to some French researchers

00:34:40: who've been researching it

00:34:42: because it's basically a fault that's on the rise.

00:34:45: And the one sure way of avoiding mouseiness

00:34:49: is to add some sulfites at juice or at a grape reception.

00:34:54: Just a little bit of sulfur dioxide

00:34:57: seems to deter mouseiness.

00:34:59: But some people have made wines...

00:35:01: Well, a lot of people now make wines with no added sulfites,

00:35:04: especially at the beginning.

00:35:05: I mean, I'd say that was the norm now.

00:35:07: Unless you've got good grapes,

00:35:08: slightly, other people don't add sulfites.

00:35:11: Even more conventional producers don't tend to.

00:35:15: Some people get lucky, some people don't.

00:35:16: Some people end up with mouseiness.

00:35:19: And it's a horrible fault, I think,

00:35:22: because if you can taste it, it's always faulty.

00:35:24: But people vary dramatically.

00:35:25: And it builds up with the momentum as well.

00:35:27: People vary dramatically in their ability to spot it.

00:35:31: And I reckon, Doug, as a wine import,

00:35:33: it must be a pain because the natural wine community,

00:35:36: the story around mouse is that it comes and goes.

00:35:39: And so, some sent you three pallets of wine

00:35:42: and you open a bottle and it's mousey.

00:35:43: You can't send it back to them

00:35:44: because they say, "Oh, just wait six months

00:35:46: and then it'll be gone."

00:35:47: It's not that it's gone, though, is it?

00:35:49: Like, I had a conversation with Eric about that.

00:35:50: It's not that it's gone.

00:35:51: It's just the flavour of it becomes dormant, basically,

00:35:55: but it's still there.

00:35:56: You know, I'm not entirely sure of the science,

00:35:58: but I will agree.

00:36:00: For me, it's the most annoying of faults.

00:36:04: But I don't know whether...

00:36:06: I mean, as Jeremy said, you can put sulphur in it

00:36:09: that's sort of with the reception.

00:36:12: I don't know whether that is the insurance.

00:36:14: You certainly...

00:36:17: If you put it in before bottling,

00:36:20: it locks the mouse in.

00:36:23: And also, when you taste the wine before bottling,

00:36:28: it may not show any mouseiness

00:36:29: and the mouseiness may develop in the bottle.

00:36:31: If it develops in the vat or the tank,

00:36:34: you can add sulphur then and maybe it will work.

00:36:38: You have to add a lot of sulphur

00:36:39: from what I understand from winemakers,

00:36:41: but it furiates me.

00:36:42: I hate the taste of it.

00:36:44: It's just obnoxious.

00:36:46: And I hate the fact that it is very much on the rise.

00:36:50: And it is a commercial embarrassment as well

00:36:54: because when you have to break the news to the producer

00:36:58: and they're small producers,

00:37:00: they don't have a lot of money.

00:37:01: What are they going to do?

00:37:03: And sometimes they'll argue the toss with you

00:37:07: and say, "No one else is complained."

00:37:09: And you have to be the enforcer.

00:37:13: But obviously, as an importer,

00:37:15: we'll accept back any wines that are nasty.

00:37:18: We try to taste as much as possible.

00:37:20: But you can only taste on reception

00:37:22: and the wine may have been fine when it left and then whatever.

00:37:27: So I wonder, Jamie, if you can maybe answer.

00:37:31: Are there precursors to mouseiness in the vineyard,

00:37:36: in the farming that could be avoided?

00:37:39: Are there sort of like, yeah,

00:37:40: are there preconditions which if the farming was better

00:37:43: or the grape selection was better

00:37:46: and you could still make no self-aware in the assurance

00:37:49: that it would not turn nasty?

00:37:52: That's a really good question.

00:37:53: I'd say the only thing I can wear off is that usually,

00:37:56: because it's bacteria that causes the pH of the vector.

00:37:59: So if you're working with a very low pH,

00:38:02: then it's much less likely.

00:38:04: So whites at low pH can go.

00:38:06: Reds, obviously the pH is often a bit higher.

00:38:10: In some vintages, I think that may be the thing

00:38:12: that's allowing the bacteria to do their thing.

00:38:14: I wonder whether also the fermentation conditions

00:38:18: can be quite interesting.

00:38:20: So if you've got like a good fermentation

00:38:22: where the population of yeasts is filling that sort of nutrient space,

00:38:28: then maybe the bacteria have a harder job doing the...

00:38:31: Yeah, I was going to add that actually as a point

00:38:32: because I've seen that with some of the growers

00:38:34: that I work with directly,

00:38:36: that the perfect storm, let's say, for mouseiness to arrive

00:38:41: is when fermentation has slowed down and not completed

00:38:45: and manolactic has started before the primary fermentation is finished.

00:38:49: And that is like, "Boom, we're ready for mouseiness."

00:38:52: So when that happens, that's when the wine maker

00:38:55: before the wine gets bottled, it's still in tank,

00:38:57: it needs to be salvaged in tank, not to an excess, I believe,

00:39:01: but then it needs to settle before it's bottled

00:39:03: and that's usually how it's handled.

00:39:06: But it seems to be that...

00:39:08: I've seen that a few times,

00:39:09: that something to do with the bacteria

00:39:11: during the fermentation process when it's not completed.

00:39:14: And maybe it goes back to maybe the pHs rising.

00:39:18: One of our Austrian producers was theorising that...

00:39:22: Because of climate chaos.

00:39:23: Climate change, yeah, exactly.

00:39:26: They were seeing pHs rise like on their wines

00:39:29: and they were getting mousy wines, which they never had before.

00:39:33: I mean, it wasn't a major occurrence for them,

00:39:35: but it never happened and now it was beginning to happen

00:39:39: and now they were having to take precautions

00:39:42: whether it was during the fermentation or after the fermentation

00:39:45: or before the fermentation.

00:39:47: They were having to be very aware of this being a thing.

00:39:52: Whereas I think once upon a time,

00:39:54: people were just making natural wines and saying,

00:39:56: "Well, I don't need to add anything, it will happen."

00:39:59: You know, "Case-sur-ah, sur-ah, fermentation is wild."

00:40:03: But now it's...

00:40:05: Now I think it's a fact of life and we need to deal with it.

00:40:09: And like any sickness, it has to be treated one way or the other.

00:40:14: Whether holistically at the beginning, in the farming

00:40:17: and the selection of grapes needs to be paramount

00:40:20: or while the patient is on the table or in the tank.

00:40:25: I think as well, one of the factors in that,

00:40:27: just going back to some of the stuff we've also discussed in previous episodes,

00:40:31: so with the rise of natural wines and more lower sulfur wines on the...

00:40:37: or no sulfur wines on the market,

00:40:40: I think obviously we're seeing a rise in mousiness

00:40:42: just because there's more of these wines being made in this way

00:40:44: available to a wider range of us.

00:40:46: That's the first thing.

00:40:47: And then this ambiguity that we have or lack of information

00:40:52: or understanding of where it's coming from, what's causing it from,

00:40:55: is that we look at a lot of wine science

00:40:57: is funded by a lot of the big industrial wineries.

00:41:00: And obviously, if they're sulfuring the wines,

00:41:02: mousiness isn't really coming up as a topic.

00:41:04: So I also wonder if our lack of knowledge comes from that,

00:41:08: because it's not so relevant for the people

00:41:11: that are actually funding the science behind this stuff.

00:41:13: And I don't know if maybe you have more insight into

00:41:17: whether there are growers looking into this

00:41:19: and what the progression is with that.

00:41:21: The inter-roned guys and the inter-bojalei professional bodies

00:41:26: were both looking at this because Rone and Bojalei,

00:41:29: they've seen it happen for their growers

00:41:31: and they're looking after their growers

00:41:33: and they're trying to do something about it.

00:41:37: And I think that's really positive.

00:41:39: So mousiness is such a...

00:41:40: The thing is, it's such a mystery.

00:41:41: It's so indefinable and it's so changeable.

00:41:43: And the other thing is when you have a bottle of wine,

00:41:48: sometimes they've got a slight premonition

00:41:50: when I start tasting it.

00:41:51: It's not mousy, but I think it's made go mousy.

00:41:53: It has that almost sweetness to it.

00:41:55: And it's like...

00:41:56: No, not mousy, but I know I've got like 45 minutes

00:41:59: to get to the end of that bottle.

00:42:01: I remember having the four horsemen in New York,

00:42:06: the only time we'd been there,

00:42:07: we wanted a le feu from the main belloward.

00:42:10: Yeah.

00:42:11: Oh, was it...

00:42:12: Amazing.

00:42:13: It was an 08.

00:42:14: It might have been, yeah.

00:42:15: Amazing.

00:42:16: Towards the end, towards the end,

00:42:18: it's like it's turning,

00:42:20: but fortunately we drank it quite quickly.

00:42:22: But then I don't understand because I thought...

00:42:24: It's oxygen.

00:42:25: When you open the bottle of the oxygen,

00:42:26: suddenly it's doing something to those compounds,

00:42:29: not the bacteria, it's doing something to those compounds.

00:42:31: The more it's open, it gets worse.

00:42:34: So suddenly you're perceiving them, whereas before you weren't.

00:42:37: The wine's also warming up.

00:42:38: The wine's also warming up.

00:42:39: The other thing is if it was kept at a constant chilled temperature,

00:42:43: would those compounds aromatize more slowly

00:42:47: and you may not detect them?

00:42:48: Or is it...

00:42:49: Did you have it on ice?

00:42:50: Because you probably didn't have it on ice.

00:42:51: This was a few years back.

00:42:52: I reckon it would have also warmed up and that would be effective.

00:42:55: But I know, like, and I had a read from Ganeva a while back

00:43:01: where we drank two thirds of it in one evening,

00:43:05: and then the next day, and I thought,

00:43:07: "Oh, you should have drunk it all."

00:43:09: The next day was super mousy.

00:43:10: The first day wasn't.

00:43:11: You know, it was fine.

00:43:12: Yes.

00:43:13: So we're dealing with these little people fresh.

00:43:15: And the other thing that obviously, dear listeners,

00:43:17: if you not really encourage the mouth to the wine,

00:43:19: you can't smell it.

00:43:20: So you can sniff a wine,

00:43:22: but you can't smell the mouth.

00:43:23: It has to be in your mouth.

00:43:24: And the pH of your mouth changes it to the point

00:43:27: that suddenly you're perceiving through retrinazol olfaction

00:43:31: these aromacompounds, the tetrahydropyridines.

00:43:35: And so one way to test it is to take wine, put it on your skin,

00:43:40: which will change the pH if you don't want to, like, actually drink the wine

00:43:45: and just smell it like that.

00:43:46: And the other thing is you can do is just change the pH of the wine chemically as well

00:43:49: by putting, I think, bicarbonate or something in it.

00:43:53: That's a bit of an effort for most of us.

00:43:55: No, but that's, if you're analysing 70 wines,

00:43:58: you don't really want to drink them all.

00:43:59: I doubt they'll bind my ears.

00:44:01: It's amazing how, like, if you put it on your wrist,

00:44:05: your wrist smells like...

00:44:07: You said popcorn, no?

00:44:08: Yeah, dropped cinema popcorn.

00:44:10: Like, not even good popcorn, stale popcorn.

00:44:12: There's been on the cinema floor for, like, a couple of days.

00:44:16: And how do you know what that tastes like?

00:44:18: You know cinema is that one of your...

00:44:20: One of your many lives.

00:44:22: Desperate when I go to the movies.

00:44:24: You smell it when you go to a cinema.

00:44:25: It's like a reeks of, like, the calm message.

00:44:28: The older the better.

00:44:29: Ooh, that's a nice, nice old bit of popcorn there.

00:44:33: Ooh, at least straight out of the old.

00:44:34: Ooh, love that.

00:44:35: How do you think I got into wine?

00:44:36: I started comparative cinema popcorn tasting.

00:44:39: So, aside from mouse, mouse is difficult and complicated.

00:44:42: The one area we haven't really explored much...

00:44:44: Oxidation.

00:44:45: Oxidative. Oxidation, oxidative.

00:44:47: I remember in New Zealand, I went with New Zealand wine makers to a bar.

00:44:51: And I saw they had an old vineyard tondonia, a branco, a blanco story, as it's saying.

00:44:57: Also the mousse are white, right?

00:44:59: It's also very quiet.

00:45:01: Anyway, so that's fun.

00:45:02: Don't say, you know, I've been in New Zealand for a while,

00:45:04: haven't seen that, all that many really super interesting wines.

00:45:07: So, it's a bottle bottle and poured it.

00:45:09: And then the New Zealand wine makers were calling the wait staff over to send it back.

00:45:15: And said, no, stop, stop, stop.

00:45:17: This is supposed to taste like this.

00:45:19: And I think that's that's a kind of oxidative character for many wine makers as a floor.

00:45:25: But in the context of some wines can be really interesting.

00:45:28: And we're not just talking about oxidation, just oxidative.

00:45:31: And this gets really interesting because, you know, you've got Fino, Sherry,

00:45:36: biologically age Sherry, Fino and Mnthnia.

00:45:38: They have acetaldehyde as part of their flavours.

00:45:41: They're fresh, they oxidise quickly, but they've got oxidative notes as part of their flavour signature.

00:45:47: Or the Dura wines with them that aren't topped up, you know, that they have that similar biological, you know, floor layer influence.

00:45:57: And floor, I think, is really interesting in wines.

00:45:59: But one of the compounds that floor produces is acetaldehyde, which is an oxidation marker,

00:46:03: even though these wines aren't oxidised because they will oxidise quite fast when you open them.

00:46:08: So that's really interesting. You're looking at a suite of aroma compounds, some of which you associate with oxidation,

00:46:14: even in wines that aren't oxidative or oxidised.

00:46:19: And then you have wines that are deliberately a little bit oxidative that can be really interesting.

00:46:24: But again, this is that spectrum.

00:46:25: And then also we look at old wine as well.

00:46:28: So we just aged in barrel.

00:46:29: So old wine.

00:46:30: So old wine. We love old wine. Yeah.

00:46:32: Everyone, I love old wine.

00:46:34: But then you're judging it slightly differently.

00:46:36: So if there's characters in the old wine were appearing in a wine that was one year old, you might be alarmed.

00:46:43: But an old wine is different because it's the context again.

00:46:46: Yeah, it's also when you go back to Van Joan in the Dura.

00:46:50: Yeah, you open it. Oxygen gets to it.

00:46:54: It doesn't change.

00:46:55: I mean, it really doesn't.

00:46:57: And you can, it's another one of those wines.

00:46:59: You can open five weeks, six weeks and can age 30, 40 or 50 years.

00:47:05: But that's interesting because a phenocere, but the phenocere is different.

00:47:08: Is it different? Yeah.

00:47:09: Because that's more fragile, isn't it?

00:47:11: Yeah.

00:47:12: Yeah, I think it is more fragile.

00:47:13: But in a Montiado, it's not.

00:47:15: No, because that's that.

00:47:16: Because that's for oxidative.

00:47:18: Yeah, oxidative.

00:47:19: Yeah, but they're relatively...

00:47:20: Because it's still slightly redacted with the floor, right?

00:47:22: Like it's still a protective layer.

00:47:24: The problem of phenol, I think, to a certain extent, is that it's filtered.

00:47:30: Chocol filtered.

00:47:31: There's nothing to protect it.

00:47:33: And rama wines are different.

00:47:34: Yeah, wines which are on the leaves.

00:47:37: Maybe they last longer.

00:47:38: And left on the leaves.

00:47:40: I think that also helps to continue the reductive anaerobic environment.

00:47:45: Also, when you've got a concentration of flavour, you've got mineral concentration.

00:47:49: Maybe that's protective.

00:47:50: I've heard that in Hungary for the first time.

00:47:52: Someone was saying this teowar makes wines that just don't oxidise.

00:47:55: Yeah.

00:47:56: Right, mineral.

00:47:57: And I was thinking, this sounds like pseudoscience.

00:47:58: But now I'm thinking, I wouldn't treat by this idea.

00:48:01: But it's quite...

00:48:02: Yeah, it's interesting that also if I think of reds from Suertes,

00:48:05: they're obviously not made oxidatively.

00:48:07: They're quite reductive.

00:48:08: But I think that's also the varietal.

00:48:10: It's the winemaking.

00:48:11: But it's the teowar, I think.

00:48:13: It's the teowar.

00:48:14: And when you open one of the reds, it's like,

00:48:16: you can go back to it two weeks later.

00:48:18: And it's just like still popping.

00:48:20: And I think there's a lot to be said for that.

00:48:23: And acidity as well.

00:48:24: I mean, Jamie, you talked about Rioja.

00:48:26: I mean, like Rioja, we always think it's one climate, but isn't it?

00:48:30: It's like high altitude.

00:48:31: And you get extraordinary acidity, which keeps the wines on a plateau for 30 or 40 years.

00:48:38: Red Rioja, but also white Rioja.

00:48:40: You know, Viora has got amazing acidity.

00:48:43: And this texture, this minerality, combined, I think, almost with oxygen,

00:48:49: it's an oxidative character, which is a preserving character.

00:48:52: Yeah, I mean, going back to that resilience.

00:48:54: It keeps the wine in a shape, yeah.

00:48:55: But you mentioned at the beginning, and I think, I mean,

00:48:57: if I think about the most resilient wine in the world, it's Madeira, right?

00:49:00: Like everybody, you don't even need to leave a cork on it.

00:49:03: You can just leave it out open.

00:49:05: And that wine is very, very sturdy in general.

00:49:10: And the white mousar, which, you know, you mentioned, is ages insanely well.

00:49:17: It's a bit like, I put that in, I put the white mousar in the same category as,

00:49:21: as like white tondonia, like the Lopez de Heredia white.

00:49:25: It's like it's the same level of being an icon wine.

00:49:28: Also one of those wines that I feel is delivering excellent value, but also unique.

00:49:37: But I feel what this whole sort of subject is,

00:49:41: is probably just like distorted by the, by our sort of binary world.

00:49:45: So, you know, we think of wines being in terms of white and red.

00:49:49: And it's, you know, that's such a relative term.

00:49:55: And New Zealand and so forth, you know, as a white wine and tondonia as a white wine.

00:49:58: But what part of the spectrum are they on?

00:50:01: They're in totally different parts of the spectrum.

00:50:03: It's a great point, Doug.

00:50:04: And actually what I love, I go to this festival,

00:50:08: Simplicementi Vinosh every year in Portugal,

00:50:12: which is all like authentic wines without makeup from Portugal.

00:50:15: And they have some guest wineries as well.

00:50:18: And one of the things we're seeing happening in Portugal is the emergence of paletes.

00:50:23: Where the wine isn't white or red.

00:50:26: It's a blend of red and white grapes co-fermented.

00:50:29: And it's a very traditional thing.

00:50:31: Often field blends, you know, vineyards would have been planted with red and white grapes in the same vineyard

00:50:36: and harvested together making a light nutritious, ethereal pale red wine.

00:50:41: And in between land between rose and red that you can drink a lot of.

00:50:47: And that would be, it's a very traditional style from Portugal.

00:50:51: And I think we're seeing more of that sort of thing where we're seeing the blurring of the lines between white, rose, red.

00:50:59: And where we're seeing this almost continuum.

00:51:02: And I think this is one of the things that, aside from, you know, looking at the broader picture,

00:51:08: one of the things that the last 15 years and largely led by the natural wine movement has done

00:51:14: is increased people's acceptance and desire for red wines that aren't deep in colour.

00:51:22: It used to be when I first started out wine, I was guilty of this, you know, see a dark wine.

00:51:28: It was like, whoa, it's so dark, it's so rich and it's beautiful.

00:51:31: There's nothing wrong with dark wines.

00:51:33: But now I think there's a much more appreciation for lighter coloured red wines that can be ethereal but still profound.

00:51:43: And I think the other thing is you go to South America and you've got País or Mission or the Creoshas from Argentina

00:51:55: that these grapes that were despised, that that's the wine making heritage of these countries

00:52:01: and, you know, the invaders brought these grapes, you know, the big bunches of, you know, not full coloured red grapes

00:52:13: that are now being used to make some very interesting wines.

00:52:16: And I think that's fabulous.

00:52:18: You know, we forget culture.

00:52:21: When we talk about wine, we always talk about it on a sort of scale of like, you know, as if it could be objectively barked

00:52:28: and, you know, like wines which have more in them, more colour, more oak, more weight, more, they're more flattering

00:52:34: are better wines because more has gone into them.

00:52:37: You have to remember that wine was originally like a peasant drink.

00:52:40: I mean, and these Creoshas wines and the sort of wine, País and a lot of European wines, the Paleti wines you're referring to,

00:52:49: they're pale and light in body because they were designed to be drunk for refreshment because they were delicious with food.

00:52:58: They weren't meant to be shipped halfway across the world for, I don't know, critics to, you know, mark them and say,

00:53:06: yeah, they're lacking oak or they're lacking colour or they're lacking this.

00:53:10: I think the lack of something in a wine, the less there is, often the more there is because the more you appreciate it

00:53:18: for being the delicious drink, the less the construct, the almost architectural construct of an anologist

00:53:26: who's putting together all the pieces to make something which is like ticks all the boxes.

00:53:32: This is where I love natural wines is often how easy they are to drink and the more pretentious wine making, I think, can upfuscate that

00:53:42: and that's considered to be correct and the natural side is like, there's something missing there.

00:53:47: There's something that, you know, there's something more we should appreciate.

00:53:52: We went out to, we three went out to dinner to brawn and I remember I brought a Carassau wine

00:54:01: and this is a winery in Calangusta in San Juan region of Argentina.

00:54:08: It's gone back to the idea of like, you know, these pale, pretty wines made from creogist, you know, sort of crossings of grapes

00:54:18: and you pour them into the glass and you think, is that a rose? Is that a red? Doesn't matter. It doesn't.

00:54:25: And then these beautiful red fruit flavours, flowers, you know, almost like Nebiolaesque type thing, almost no tannins.

00:54:34: It just eases across the palette like fluidly, like, you know, and you think that was just lovely

00:54:43: and almost you don't want to consider it anymore and you don't want to describe it. It just is. It just is what it is.

00:54:49: And one of the people in our, let's say, a little group literally said, is that it?

00:54:54: You know, like, it's a bit like you tell a story or a joke and it's like, it doesn't have to have a punchline.

00:54:59: That is what it is. And he was really disappointed because he expected this, you know, like iconic architectural wine.

00:55:08: And we were really happy with the wine because we just, yeah, we all said it's beautiful and beautiful.

00:55:15: It's a Nebiolaesque word, but it connects us, you know, what our feeling about the wine is.

00:55:21: And I think flowers, I think the wine, if it had like, flowers, it would be flowers for an onologist, but not for arse, it's just humble, appreciative drinkers.

00:55:31: More is not always more in that case, right?

00:55:34: No, less is less. Well, I drink wine less is more. I mean, I drink, you know, wine every evening.

00:55:41: I don't want to be impressed constantly. I mean, there are times that you, okay, you admire a wine, but you wouldn't want to live in it type thing.

00:55:49: It's like a cathedral. I admire, I admire the architecture, but I live in a house.

00:55:53: I want something which is functional, which is there, squinching and goes really well with food and sort of makes me want another glass.

00:56:00: I don't want to look at a glass and think, that's pretty amazing looking, but sorry, I can't get into it.

00:56:07: It's too alcoholic. It's too oaky. It's, you know, I tend to criticize wines which are, which I think acknowledges and a lot of high scoring wines.

00:56:17: I would find them not charming, I guess. This is what I want to say.

00:56:23: Well, it's a different approach, isn't it? Because it's kind of like reverse engineered in that way.

00:56:28: Like if you look at like a grower is, I'm in tune with the vineyard. I'm working with the fruit this year.

00:56:34: I'm picking, I'm looking at what I've got and then I'm making a decision.

00:56:37: What do I do with what I've got and why I've grown and how do I express that in the way that I can express that?

00:56:43: Whereas if we like to flip that, it's like a different model of the analogous wine where it's like, there were eight of us in a room that thought about this concept.

00:56:53: Okay, what are all the decisions I make now to make sure that concept comes into fruition? It's different.

00:57:00: Any final thoughts? Because I know we're nearing our time, right? Jamie's given me the, it's almost one hour. It's one hour.

00:57:07: I think my final thought would be is that I like this discussion a lot. Lots of things we haven't touched on, like the nature of beauty that we could touch on.

00:57:17: And I think there's this, I really appreciate this sort of the multitude of wine styles that now we encounter that are being taken more seriously.

00:57:29: Whereas in some ways it's like going to the cellar now in most wineries. In the past, it was just stainless steel and small oak.

00:57:36: Now it's like I'm going to, you'll see all sorts of alternative elevages.

00:57:42: Wine at a certain level has become, even outside of natural wine, has become much more thoughtful.

00:57:50: Let's see what we can produce that really is a faithful and intelligent interpretation of place.

00:57:57: And that's, I think, it's really exciting. And I think a lot of it, you know, your response to wine is determined by, are you curious?

00:58:07: Are you willing to accept new flavors? And as we go, if we decide we're going to embark on that journey of trying new things, accepting new flavors,

00:58:15: then our experience and our familiarity with things that in the past were unfamiliar then increases our enjoyment of them.

00:58:23: It's like people's faces, they've done studies where a face you see lots, you grow to like more.

00:58:28: So you grow to like things the more you experience them. And that's a really very, very bad thing.

00:58:33: There's this sense of your appreciation, aesthetic, aesthetically grows, was repeated experience.

00:58:40: And I think there's like that with wine. I remember when I first started eating cheese as an adult, I hated it until I, you know, maybe I was 35

00:58:47: when I was in the trip to Portugal and I had always avoided cheese. I don't like cheese. And then I thought, well, let's try some.

00:58:53: So I was in Portugal in the Dow region, tried some casual to Sarah and Sarah to Strella, quite a complicated cheese, not a beginner's cheese.

00:59:01: But I thought, I'm going to try in this because I neglected this thing that initially my, you know, my palate says this is not good.

00:59:08: You should not be eating this. I'm like, no, I'm going to. So I try it. Now I love this stuff. I love cheese now a lot.

00:59:14: Whereas I didn't eat any cheese until I was 35. So this is another topic we can discuss at some other stages, how our relationship to flavour changes with experience.

00:59:26: And I think wines also evolve in terms of the way the wine makers perceive the terroir on which they operate.

00:59:33: And I think most wine makers, and I think I include conventional and natural in the same embrace here, is they really want to make the wine that reflects the place that they're making.

00:59:43: The vineyards they're spending the time in. But how they shape that wine eventually is so many choices that they make.

00:59:51: So a recent trip I just come back from Southern France is everybody is now moving towards concrete. Well, a lot. Really soft extractions.

01:00:00: They call it infusions rather than extractions. They just want like five days on skins.

01:00:05: They just want this sort of sense of the personality of the wine to triumph over the stainless steel or the wooden vessel.

01:00:13: This is why they move away more towards concrete and clay. But just less invasive wine making and more gentle accompaniment.

01:00:24: And if there are flaws, if the nature of the vintage is very particular, they will be captured in the wine.

01:00:31: It's about not superimposing something, an idea of perfection on what is essentially an imperfect product.

01:00:39: Yeah, Doug, thank you. What a way. I think that's the perfect finish for this episode.

01:00:44: And for those of you that are listening and not already following us on Instagram, follow us on Instagram at just another wine podcast.

01:00:53: And yeah, I'm Emily Harman. Thank you. Till next time.

01:00:56: See you next week.

01:00:57: See you. Any good signing out.

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