Word in taste notes I see a lot : Barnyard

I see english TNs mention barnyard a lot.

Can you elaborate on that thought?

Is it the same as I describe as "hay and earth"?

Reply to
Michael Nielsen
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It is a descriptor of brett infection. Though some fine wines can have a little barnyard without being brett infected.

In the case of some very fine Burg reds, one can find a barnyardish earthy aroma veering toward strawberry. In extreme cases (rare today) it becomes "fiente de poule" (chicken droppings), was considered typical! - probably due to reduction.

Otherwise arthy aromas can either be due to geosmin (think beetroot), to pyrazines (sauvignonish grass), or even to TCA (corked).

Reply to
Mike Tommasi

So when DaleW often mention "barnyard funk" in his notes, it is actually identifying the wines as flawed?

Reply to
Michael Nielsen

identifying the wines as flawed?

Well, probably people at UC Davis would say yes. But brett has a long histo ry of being regarded - some strains, in reasonable concentrations- as an ac cent to wine. I'm quite comfortable with the famous "Cordier funk " found i n 80s Meyney, Gruaud, Talbot. Or the pleasant (to me) funk of old school Bu rgundy or Beaucastel (though the Perrins claim that's Mouvedre, not brett).

Reply to
DaleW

Michael Nielsen wrote in news:33db84be-6d59- snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Have you ever been in a stable? with cows? or horses? That's barnyard.

Hay.. maybe. More like animal skin, breathe, and shit.

s
Reply to
santiago

DaleW wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

Agree with Dale here. A touch of barnyard can add some personality while too much will probably be a defect.

Technically perfect wines are sometimes soul-less, and it is their imperfections that give them personality.

s
Reply to
santiago

Yes. MY mother had horses and I rode one.

I once write in a taste note for grappa "like a barn where someone bought a new saddle". Can grappa have brett?

So people are actually saying " this wine tastes like shit, and I like it" haha :)

Reply to
Michael Nielsen

+1. And the Perrins are right about Mourvedre imparting some deep funkiness, although it sounds a little like excuse making to me. I taste brett in older Beaucastel.

Certainly a runaway brett infection is a flaw, and a big one. This happens sometimes (a notable Loire valley producer comes to mind) and can be measured in the lab with ppm in the high hundreds or even over 1000.

agreed.

-E

Reply to
Emery Davis`

Wiki lists 3 strains that give different aromas. one of them is cheese. At the last tasting at the wine club I had Bernard Magrez Le Medoc. It smelled like emmenthaler. Could this be a brett infection?

Reply to
Michael Nielsen

On Sunday, February 15, 2015 at 5:42:49 PM UTC+1, DaleW wrote: (though the Perrins claim that's Mouvedre, not brett)

Mourvèdre in fact has no such funkiness when treated fairly ;-)

Hygiene has improved a lot since those days of bretty mourvèdre. Yes the plants are now older than the barrels ;-)

Reply to
Mike Tommasi

I guess, but not all bottle funk is down to brett. What's more, Magrez is an owner, not a winemaker, so this is likely to be a negociant wine made industrially, which probably doesn't use natural yeasts and so is unlikely to want to include brett in the flavour profile. I wouldn't be surprised if this were Malesan in a different bottle... :)

Reply to
Emery Davis`

Howdy Mike,

I know this is a subject dear to you, but I would still maintain there is such a thing as "mourvedre funk" outside of brett. Maybe just my lack of a better descriptive...

Reply to
Emery Davis`

I dont know Malesan. Seems it is not a magrez wine since 2003.

Le Medoc was not good. Neither I nor my wife liked it. We only liked one that day:

2010 Prelude Cabernet/ Merlot, Leeuwin Estate, Australia.
Reply to
Michael Nielsen

Don't worry, it's industrial garbage. However I doubt it varies much year-to-year! ;)

Reply to
Emery Davis`

People have different sensitivities to Brett and different strains of Brett impart different odors to wine. At its most appealing, a low level Brett infection imparts "animale" odors to wine, things like gamey meat. As it gets more intense, one gets a "Band-aid" flavor (due to the presence of 4-ethylphenol, closely related to the meta-cresol disinfectant used in Band-Aids). Even more intense and it begins to take on shit-like smells. Few people by this time are so tolerant as to actually enjoy the wine. I vividly recall one bottle so badly infected that a friend described it as smelling like a dirty baby's diaper. Another badly Brett-infected bottle gave rise to this infamous tasting note:

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Mark Lipton

Reply to
Mark Lipton

I remember having noted wines tasting or smelling like roasted meat.

I see others notes say its like a fart and tires. so thats an entire vintage infected? Is brett somethign that spoils a vintage of a wine, and not just one bottle, so TNs refelcting the brett infection applies to the vintage?

Reply to
Michael Nielsen

The worst case of brett that I have experienced was from a Languedoc grenache. It smelled strongly (to me) of carrots and there was a very strong metallic taste as well. Graham

Reply to
graham

There is a mourvèdre funkiness, but it is not brett. The term "sous-bois" is used here. Not nasty, but somehow close to mushrooms and forest smells.

Reply to
Mike Tommasi

graham wrote in news:G4NEw.1029704$ snipped-for-privacy@fx29.iad:

I will never forget the day when, in 2007, while touring Le Salon des Vins de Loire in Angers, we went to the booth of a well known winemaker, and former librarian / antiquarian in Paris, quite famous for his non- interventionist approach to winemaking.

We tasted some of his whites: Effussion, Les Cornillards, then went to the reds. And there it was, a red Loire (presumably Cabernet Franc from the Anjou area) wine that we all thought was the most brett-infected wine ever. One of my friends that day just said: "the horse had a dump in this barrel".

I still have a lone bottle of a magnificent moelleux wine from that producer. 1997 vintage.

Reply to
santiago

You mean Patrick Baudouin? Yes a good friend, started off mainly doing botrytis in the Layon. I have never tried his reds, but I know all of his whites and they are superb. Since then he has developed his dry white range considerably, and they are great.

Reply to
Mike Tommasi

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