bleu cheese smell from wine?

If I understand correctly, what you detected -- sometimes described as "barnyard" -- might have been caused by Brettanomyces, a common wild yeast that affects most wine to some degree. Some people consider that a certain amount of Brett adds character to the wine, and people have different sensitivities to it as well. Some hate it. In any case, Brett is not harmful. If there was also an excess of diacetyl -- a by-product of incomplete fermentation -- the combination of diacetyl's buttery/cheesy smell and Brett could cause something like a moldy cheese smell, I suppose. This is not harmful either. Others may have better suggestions.

Andy

From

STILTON Stilton (F) Stilton (G) Stilton (I) Stilton (S) Not as rare as you might think, all the compounds below are found in wine and also happen to be the most important contributors to the aroma and flavour of blue cheeses. Diacetyl, 2-methylpropanal, 3-methylbutanal, ethyl butanoate, ethyl hexanoate, methional, dimethyl trisulphide, Heptan-2-one, 2-nonanone

First of all, don't worry about this from a health standpoint: wine is a very inhospitable environment for pathogens, so it's safe to drink in almost all cases. I have a different interpretation of what you were smelling from the other responders. "Cork taint" is a (regrettably) common flaw in wines placed in cork-sealed bottles. Industry estimates range from 5-15% of all cork-finished wine may be tainted. It is caused by contamination with a chemical (TCA) that some people can smell at very, very low levels. I am one of those people, and I can't eat bleu cheeses because their taste and smell remind me too much of cork taint (and, incidentally, mildew). So, I would suggest that you may have encountered a "corked" bottle of Pinotage and be one of those people who can sense cork taint quite acutely. If so, my commiseration.

Mark Lipton

I was wondering myself if it might not be TCA. Then I found the more positive reference to blue cheese odours in wine so I guess it is difficult to say without actually smelling it yourself.

I agree that cork taint is a possibility. If so, there is a positive side. That is, it is less likely that other bottles of the same wine will have the same unpleasent smell if it is corked than if there is some other flaw, since most other faults develop during the vinification process, and therefore may affect a whole barrel/tank/batch. Of course, it is possible that many bottles of that wine are corked, but it is also possible that only a few were affected.

By the way, it is considered permissible for Jonathon to return the corked bottle (if that's what it is) to the merchant for a refund, is it not?

Andy

Thanks for your assessment. The interesting thing was that, besides the strange roquefort smell, the wine was quite good. And I'd go so far as to say that if I liked Roquefort, I would enjoy this wine. That is to say, this bottle didn't taste like it had gone "bad."

It was just a little bizarre.

It reminds me of a bottle I had a while back, a Bully Hill (NY) Baco Noir. It had the immediate smell of ketchup/barbeque sauce. As bad as that may sound, I thought the bottle was wonderful!

I haven't ever encountered "corked" wine though I read about it often.

"£ Î Z @ R Ð" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@adelphia.com:

I dare say that you have and didn't know it. I know that I had not known what "corked" meant for some time, but upon discovering it as in, "this is corked wine" I realized that I had tasted it several times.

Jonathan, may I suggest that if you drink wine even fairly often, you almost certainly *have* encountered it. You just didn't realize that it was corked. This such a prevalent problem that the only people who haven't experienced it are those who don't drink wine.

... and that reminds me of a bottle I sampled in Sonoma, which upon tasting gave me an immediate impression of "pizza". I didn't buy it because I don't eat much pizza at home any more (my wife used to make a wondeful pizza) but it seemed the perfect wine for that.

and upthread, yes, it is acceptable to return a corked bottle. I only did it once, but the merchant took it back with no problem whatsoever.

Jose

Absolutely, Andy, provided that you have recently purchased the bottle. Where life gets interesting is when you open a bottle that has sat in your cellar for lo those 15 years only to find it irretrievably ruined by TCA. Have you got proof of purchase after all that time? And, even if you do, will the merchant honor that agreement? Dunno, but I may have to try that some time just to find out...

Mark Lipton

Yup, same here. I'd noticed from time to time since the late-'70s that some wines I tasted had a moldy, mildewy character to them that reminded me of the smell of barrel rooms at wineries. It wasn't until the early '90s that I learned that that smell was what people called "cork taint." What a revelation! I'd dismissed dozens of wines as bad that probably were simply corked. Better late than never, I suppose...

Mark Lipton

"...for lo those 15 years only to find it irretrievably ruined by TCA. Have you got proof of purchase after all that time? And, even

if you do, will the merchant honor that agreement?"

Right. And is the merchant still alive? ;-)