Susie & Peter / Podcast Episodes  / Season Six / Your Ultimate Guide To Wine Faults

Summary

Ladybird poo. Cheesy feet. Mould. Boiled eggs. Cabbage. Drains. Vomit. Nail varnish remover. Dead mouse…

Yes, you can find all these noxious aromas in a glass of wine.

They are very real – and in this episode we put our bodies on the line as we blind taste through all these horrors and more, to answer the big questions and ensure you know your stuff.

Because life is too short for faulty wine.

So what are the main wine faults?

How can you spot them? Is it true some are becoming more common? Why do they happen? What can you do about it? And dead mouse…really??!!

The answers may surprise and shock you.

We have Dutch sensory scientist Sietze Wijma in the hot-seat, serving us wines spiked with taints to bring these faults to life.

We give our six Top Wine Taint Tips – and explain how to check your wine properly.

Which, as we reveal, can actually be a matter of life and death…

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Transcript

NB: This transcript was AI generated. It’s not perfect (particularly with Sietze’s name, sadly).

Susie: Hello, you’re listening to Wine Blast with me, Susie Barrie, and my husband and fellow Master of wine Peter Richards. And in this episode, we really are testing those credentials as we pitch ourselves against the fiendish, foul, and generally noxious multiverse of wine taints and faults.

Peter: Fun times! You know, getting down and dirty with the grubby underbelly of wine. Something that gets talked about a lot, but probably isn’t that well understood, you know? And it’s actually pretty intriguing for all sorts of reasons, including the fact that checking your wine properly can actually be a matter of life and death. More on that later in the show. To be really clear from the outset, faulty wine is a very real thing. It’s out there. It’s in your glass. So it pays to know your stuff to make sure you’re only drinking wine that’s in the right condition.

Susie: Life’s too short for bad wine let alone faulty wine! And we’re prepared to put our bodies and minds on the line for this. Cause, here is the proof.

Peter: Ooh. What the hell is that??!!

Susie: Oh, I don’t like that. Gosh,

Peter: What are you doing to us??!! We invited you into our house for a nice time, and you’re serving us wine with ladybug poo!

Susie: wine with ladybird poo.

Peter: God.

Sietze Wijma: Yeah. Suddenly it’s.

Susie: It’s not very nice, is it?

Peter: oh, well, what are you doing to me? This kind of dead mouse just jumps.

Susie: Out at you, isn’t it?

Sietze Wijma: Yeah.

Peter: Wow.

Susie: So that’s us blind tasting a specially prepared selection of wines that had been spiked with various taint compounds by the Dutch sensory scientist and educator Sietze Wijma with whom we spent a, fascinating and fun afternoon tasting and recording to properly get to grips with what makes a wine faulty.

Peter: And the good news is that you too can enjoy this kind of tasting and experience it. doesn’t have to be with faulty wines. If you’re not a masochist, like us, you can do something normal, like a standard red wine or white wine tasting, because Sietze’s company, the Art of Tasting, sells kits that come with online tutorials. I mean, cutting edge stuff this. He also does tastings in person if you’re more analogue. we’ll put more details about all of this in the show notes.

Susie: But first, let’s get into the right headspace when it comes to wine faults. What they are, what they aren’t, how to spot them, and what to do about it. Some of this will, I guarantee, guarantee surprise you, maybe even shock you, possibly contradict what you thought you knew and hopefully ultimately help you enjoy your wine even more.

Peter: Yeah, because that’s what it’s all about at the end of the day, isn’t it? I even read recently about a new electronic tongue that outperforms humans in detecting faults. It might have saved us some pain if we’d have relationships. Anyway, our son recently forwarded us an Instagram video, didn’t he?

Susie: He did indeed.

Peter: By the wonderful etiquette expert, an outrageously successful podcaster, William Hanson, of Help I sexted my boss check it out if you haven’t. So here’s what William had to say.

William Hanson: When being served wine in a restaurant, there is no need to make an entire production out of the whole tasting procedure. Swilling it around. None of that nonsense, please. Instead, just take it to your nose. If it doesn’t smell of wet cardboard and mushrooms, then it’s absolutely fine. There’s no need to taste it at all until you’re ready to drink it.

Susie: I love that. I think we can safely say this was a valiant effort by our son to stop us embarrassing him in restaurants, which we are very good at. But no. As for the video, while I agree with the general sentiment William is expressing, no one needs to be pretentious about these things. Unfortunately, he’s not on the money on this occasion, and we are going to explain why, aren’t we?

Peter: he’s not right. It’s very, very true. Right, so we have talked faults before on the pod. We’ve covered biogenic amines in the undeserved Hangover from season two, and also light strike from season five, among other things. so we’re not going to dwell too much on those. What we are going to do in this episode is run through a number of common or key wine faults and taints, exploring what they are, how to spot them, what causes them, how you could remedy them, because that is possible for some faults. And at the end, we’ll summarise our top tips on wine faults that will be well worth sticking around to take in. Maybe commit to memory, I don’t know, put on a T shirt, something like that.

Susie: Anyway, along the way, we will be talking mould, boiled eggs, ladybug poo, cabbage, wet drains, cheesy feet, vomit, nail varnish remover, potato skins and dead mouse. So if that isn’t an incentive to carry on listening, I don’t know what is.

Peter: Frankly, sounds like the homebrew I made when I was 17. just one thing to add before we start. that List does sound like a horror show, doesn’t it? But it’s important to note that perception is individual and different people can perceive things in different ways or sometimes not perceive something at all. Specific anosmia is a condition where certain people can’t smell certain compounds, for example, or what some people describe as green bean, others might describe as ginseng.

Susie: And the same can apply to how an individual compound is perceived.

00:05:00

Susie: One person might find the smell of a particular flower very attractive. Another person can smell the same aromatic compound and perceive it as putrid. Fundamentally, they’re smelling the same thing, just reacting to it differently. Equally, a clear fault for one taster might actually be a complexing agent or an intriguing, edgy character to another. So there can be a question of independent individual differences, context, culture, concentration and perception to bear in mind here.

Peter: Ultimately, though, there is such a thing as rancid wine it’s more common than you might think, probably more than you realise, and that’s not good for anyone. So, let’s crack on and, we should give a bit of an introduction to Sietze at this point.

Susie: Absolutely. So Sietze Wijma is from the Netherlands and studied psychology and then an MSc in sensory science. With his company, the Art of Tasting, he runs, as we’ve said, courses for wine and beer lovers and professionals, helping people to understand common flavours and how they’re formed. And he does this by using a unique method of spiking wines with added flavour compounds to illustrate his point.

Peter: Now, these flavours can be common or ordinary ones, like bananas or green pepper or vanilla. or they can be wine faults. now, Sietze heard our, wine Blast episode on light strike and he reached out, to offer to host just such a tasting with us to explore this theme of wine faults in a bit more depth. and being total wine nerds, we just couldn’t resist, couldn’t.

Susie: And so he turned up at our house with a bunch of little bottles, didn’t he? And a big smile beneath his impressive moustache. And we asked him to describe the scene as we sat down to taste.

Sietze Wijma: So in front of us are 11 bottles labelled reference and one through to 10. They’re all based on the same base wine We have a delightful Chardonnay from Stoney Creek from Australia. very inoffensive and, high volume. Ah, white wine So nothing too interesting about it itself, but it’s a really nice sort of blank canvas to illustrate some of these faults. And the samples, 1 through to 10, each have a single Aroma compound added. And we will be, nosing tasting these samples and then I’m very interested to hear your associations.

Susie: So these are tiny, well, small bottles. One sort of 187 millilitre bottle.

Sietze Wijma: Exactly. So perfect for the three of us.

Susie: Yeah.

Peter: Okay, so that’s the scene. A slightly daunting lineup of 11 bottles, all white wine all looking exactly the same. but we knew that situ had spiked 10 of them with various horrors to see our reactions and actually to test whether we knew what we were talking about.

Susie: So in we gamely dive, didn’t we? And here was how we got on with the first fault. Oh.

Peter: Oh, my God.

Sietze Wijma: Right, let’s get this out of the way. Right, the most famous.

Susie: Let’s get it out of there. I hope it’s TCA or cork or cork taint or whatever it smells. But it’s so recognisable immediately. It’s like that. It’s like, I always think it’s like wet cardboard.

Peter: It’s.

Susie: It’s just damp and musty. Mouldy.

Peter: Exactly.

Susie: And is that, is that one compound then?

Sietze Wijma: Yes, exactly. So single compound, and the compound is called tca. So that’s the name of the molecule. It’s an abbreviation for trichloroanisole

Susie: Yeah.

Sietze Wijma: And that’s indeed responsible for the foul cork taint.

Susie: Perfect.

Sietze Wijma: And you’ve already given some perfect, descriptors. Some. Some people can also relate to a swimming pool descriptor. not something you hear very often. But this is a chlorine containing compounds. So sometimes in swimming pools you indeed also get this. So chlorine itself does not have really any smell. So m. It’s mostly the reaction products of chlorine that have smells. Yes. and initially. And this also happens when cork, taint forms. You’re going to get a reaction between chlorine and certain phenolic compounds to form something called TCP or trichlorophenol. And that might ring a bell to you because it’s also a commercial product. Right. It’s an antiseptic. So it’s a very effective, tool against microbes. So it’s toxic in a way to many different types of mould. But some moulds have a defensive mechanism against tcp, so they turn it into tca. And TCA is what you’re smelling here. So that’s the musty smelling, smell.

Peter: Okay.

Susie: So that. So that is probably the most well known or, well, most talked about wine fault that there is, I would imagine.

Sietze Wijma: Yes, indeed.

Peter: Well, that’s that’s, that’s okay. That’s a good start. I feel, I feel we’re doing really well. We’re outperforming here. Should we quit while we’re ahead? Should we just say you recognise listener we did not quit while we were ahead. I was talked down from my position. anyway, that was a punchy start, wasn’t it? a slap round the chops to get us going. You know, a musty, mouldy wake up call and you know, really just a nice easy one from our perspective it’s going to ease us into the saddle. Quite an obvious one.

Susie: And just to clarify, TCA or 2,4,6 trichloroanasol is a very pungent taint. So you only need a tiny

00:10:00

Susie: amount to ruin a wine The equivalent I read somewhere of one dissolved sugar cube in 60 Olympic, Olympic sized swimming pools. In wine this taint often comes from the cork, but it can come from other sources too, including oak barrels or other things the wine might have come into contact with. So it is possible to get TCA tainted wine in a screw cap bottle.

Peter: It’s always hard to get your head.

Susie: Around that one, isn’t it?

Peter: But it can happen. Or it might be tba which is very similar, isn’t it? Anyway, that sort of corky smell you can get in a screw cap bottle. So we call it cork tape but it doesn’t always come from the cork. And actually I think it’s fair to say cork companies have been developing clever ways to get rid of corks over the past few decades, including crafty agglomerate corks. So generally speaking it’s probably less prevalent than it used to be. I think it’s fair to say. But some estimates are as high as 5% of wines having cork taint. That’s one in every 20 bottles.

Susie: It does seem high, doesn’t it? I mean, see, I think reckons it’s nearer one in a hundred, but it definitely happens as we can attest. The one thing it doesn’t have anything to do with is bits of cork floating around in your wine That is just poor opening. You just need to fish them out. But one thing see also add was that there’s an assumption that low level cork taint, rather than making the wine smell obviously mouldy, just dulls the wine He said he’s never been able to replicate that with his spiking despite having tried different levels. So he wonders whether that’s not just a myth, a cover for bad wines or other faults such as low level oxidation, for example.

Peter: That’s really interesting. Interesting. Okay, let’s move on to our next faults. because this was two together, I’m.

Sietze Wijma: Going to go ahead and also pour number three, because these two are related.

Peter: Okay. Yeah. That’s very pungent. Wow. Okay.

Sietze Wijma: Pungent. Yeah, that’s a great start. Bruised.

Peter: Happily.

Susie: It’s very. You see, I don’t dislike that. Oh, you quite like that? Yeah, you see? Yeah, it’s like. It’s like a lovely red bruised apple that, you know, some natural winemaker has made. I think it’s actually improved the wine frankly, for me.

Peter: Okay. Number that, number three is interesting as well.

Susie: So that. So, yeah. So that seems sort of M. The first one that you poured seems sort of. So glass number two, some oxidation there.

Peter: How are you describing that? We’re saying bruised apple, it hits the back of your nose straight away and.

Susie: M. It’s quite expressive.

Peter: But actually when you. When you look at it more, I can see your point about it, but it not be unpleasant. I think there’s more and more wines maybe made with an element of this kind of character.

Sietze Wijma: Absolutely. There’s certain some wine styles that actually rely on this flavour. And I’ll talk about in a little bit what they. These might be. Bruised apple is the most common descriptor here, so you hit the nail on the head. Some people describe it as paint like. And, even paint.

Susie: Paint like.

Sietze Wijma: Yes. And even carved pumpkin is a descriptor I love about this. So like the inside of a pumpkin, if you slice it in the middle, that releases the same smell.

Peter: Carved pumpkin.

Sietze Wijma: Yes, exactly.

Peter: Okay.

Sietze Wijma: And the compound that I’ve added here is called acetaldehyde.

Susie: Yes.

Sietze Wijma: And I was super excited to present this one as well because I know it’s also been discussed in one of your previous episodes that was more about, alcohol and hangovers.

Peter: Yes.

Sietze Wijma: So we know that acetaldehyde is also, a metabolite in the body. So when we ever consume, whenever we consume alcohol, then that is being turned into acetaldehyde. And part of that explains the hangover phenomenon. But it’s also an important aroma compound in wine and it really has two origins. you already mentioned oxidation, so. Indeed, whenever wine is exposed to oxygen, you’ll get higher levels of acetaldehyde. But yeast is also able to produce acetaldehyde and this is an intermediate compound in the production of alcohol. So in other words, yeast consumes sugar, then turns it into acetaldehyde and then turns the acetaldehyde into alcohol. So this is one of our in between steps during fermentation. And that tells us also that whenever we’re smelling this, it could be a sign that the fermentation is not yet completed. And that could be for a variety of reasons. It could be accidental. So maybe the fermentation was stuck, maybe yeast stopped functioning altogether and then you’re left with a lot of acetaldehyde. Sometimes that’s intentional. So the winemaker would stop fermentation. Maybe they wanted it with residual sugar. But then often you’re also left with a bit of leftover acetaldehyde.

Susie: Interesting.

Sietze Wijma: but then the wine styles where you will find high levels in are mostly Fino sherry, as well as Manzanilla sherry, because they are produced with a type of yeast called floor. And floor is known to produce very high levels of acetaldehyde, even much beyond this.

Peter: So acetaldehyde is produced as a stage on the way to alcohol ethanol formation. So that’s really important in winemaking. We need acetaldehyde to be produced, but then it can also be produced through other mechanisms which aren’t necessarily always so positive.

Sietze Wijma: Yes.

00:15:00

Sietze Wijma: So when a bottle of wine is open for too long, for example, you’ll get high levels of acetaldehyde. But also when, grapes are damaged, for example, in the vineyards, that already some oxidation will start, resulting in higher levels of acetaldehyde. Also, if you are not careful with filling tanks, for example, you’re working with half filled fermentation tanks, you also get higher levels of acetaldehyde. So it’s definitely a flavour that you will need to be careful of as a winemaker.

Susie: Okay, so this is interesting. As Seetsa says, we did talk about acetaldehyde in our red wine headaches episode, and it’s an intriguing substance because as he says, it’s formed as a step along the chain to the formation of alcohol by yeasts. And then it’s also formed when our bodies break down alcohol again, usually as a step in the Chain towards getting rid of alcohol from the body.

Peter: Yeah. And when it crops up in wine in excess, it’s bad. It can be a winemaking fault. But then in some wines like, Fino Sherry, it’s part of the normal flavour profile. And as you said, you know, you didn’t find it unpleasant.

Susie: No, no.

Peter: it’s sort of a kind of natural wine feel there. so perhaps it’s one of those where it’s a fault in excess or to some people or in the wrong context, but in other concentrations or wines. It’s fine.

Susie: And Tietzer also served as, didn’t he? Another, oxidation compound, sotolon, which smells of brown sugar or maple syrup or fenugreek seeds, which can be present in wines like Sauterne or Oloroso, but which, when it crops up in young white Burgundy, is a sign of premox or premature oxidation, which is not at all appropriate or good.

Peter: Absolutely, absolutely. And then we mix the acetaldehyde and so on wines. And it smelled just like a wine that being kept open for too long. so just to recap, a bit of oxidation character can be okay in some wines, but in excess or in the wrong wine it’s just bad. often the wine will look brown and tired, which can be a visual cue as well.

Susie: Right, we’ve got some real wine fault horrors coming up. Ah. Which will make for compelling listen, listening and learning. We’ll also be giving you our top tips. So let’s take a breath to gather our strengths before the big push. By way of summary, so far, life is too short for faulty wine which is very real and pretty disgusting, especially when it comes to something like TCA or cork taint. But some faults can be a question of extent or context. So it’s not always straightforward calling it one way or the other.

Peter: But that’s not the case with our next one, is it? let’s cheque it out. This is fun. I’m really enjoying this. Should I not be enjoying. I shouldn’t be enjoying this.

Susie: No, you should really be enjoying, you proper geek.

Peter: If. Exactly. It’s because my nerd quotient is so high seats of it. Say that’s why I’m m enjoying it. Right, okay. Right. Number four.

Susie: Yeah, number four immediately.

Peter: Oh, what the hell is that? That smells like cheese.

Susie: Boiled, cabbagey. I get a really sort of.

Peter: That’s like goat’s cheese. Yes. There’s a sort of vegetal vegetable.

Susie: Rotten. Slightly rotten veg.

Sietze Wijma: I love how you’re immediately listening to descriptors that, like, on first sight, you wouldn’t think that they’re related. Right. You’re saying cheese and then you’re saying cabbage.

Susie: Yes.

Sietze Wijma: But indeed, like, that just sounds like rotten cabbage. As well as certain types of cheese, you find that same compound.

Susie: Okay, that’s really interesting.

Peter: So what you’re saying is you’re being very diplomatic and say we’re both right in different ways. You’re very. You can definitely come again.

Susie: This is very good.

Peter: We like you. so how are we doing with this one? Are we saying the Right things or the wrong things or.

Sietze Wijma: yeah, a little bit more specific about the cheese. I think this really smells of Camembert. So that’s the type of, cheese that can smell like this. Not all cheeses smell like this.

Susie: No. Okay.

Sietze Wijma: indeed. Cabbage. Common descriptor. Also, drains, like blocked drains, is another common one that people will describe this as. And the compound is called methyl mercaptan. And this belongs to the class of sulphur compounds. And there’s a lot of different sulphur compounds that can be found in wine but this is, one of them. And it’s related to two faults, first one being reduction, and then the other one is light strike, which you’ve definitely.

Peter: Wonder whether you’re going to Light strike territory.

Susie: Light strike stuff.

Peter: Yes.

Susie: Yeah, yeah.

Peter: So this is. So sulphur is obviously quite a complex issue, and I’d be interested to hear you talk about it, because obviously, sulphur. Sulphur is used in the winemaking process in the form of sulphur dioxide. But it crops up in lots of different ways. Sometimes it can be positive and then sometimes it can be negative. but this definitely, to me feels like a negative.

Sietze Wijma: And some of the negative ones are methyl M mercaptan, which you’re smelling here, but also hydrogen sulphide, which smells of boiled eggs or rotten eggs. So that’s another one that belongs in that reductive territory.

Peter: so, you’re going to have to explain reduction. Reductive.

Sietze Wijma: Absolutely, yes. M. And reduction is a wine fault, which is due to stressed yeast. And when I say stressed yeast, it means that during fermentation, yeast is not entirely happy with the fermentation conditions, mostly because it’s lacking certain nutrients. And I like to draw the analogy here with the human diet, because

00:20:00

Sietze Wijma: when we are consuming, suppose I would put you on a diet which is only sugar, and you consume that for a week, Right after the week, you wouldn’t feel very well, but you would still be alive. And yeast behaves the same. So although it’s famous for turning sugar into alcohol, it needs a lot of different nutrients along the way, otherwise it doesn’t ferment in a healthy manner. So similarly to humans, it needs minerals, it needs vitamins, it needs amino acids, and all of those are usually supplied by the grape itself. So grape Djuce is a. Is a nice, nutritious source for yeast. But if it’s lacking certain nutrients, and I’m specifically talking about nitrogen, then it starts to produce a lot of these sulphur compounds. And nitrogen is typically Pulled, up from the soil. So when the grapevine is growing, it will just absorb nitrogen through its roots. It ends up in the grape, and that’s a sufficient source. But when we’re, looking at very poor soils, so soil’s low in nutrients, then this can become a problem because yeast is not insufficient in terms of its nutrients. For a winemaker, it’s quite common to make some additives, so to adjust the level of nitrogen during fermentation to make sure that yeast is happy and doesn’t start to produce those sulphur compounds.

Susie: Okay.

Sietze Wijma: So that is reduction. And we also know that it’s related, to the amounts of oxygen that yeast has access to. So if it’s lacking oxygen, then this problem becomes much worse. Okay, so too much oxygen and you’re getting bruised apple and caramel. Too little oxygen and you’re running into these problems. And that can also happen even during bottling. So if you’re initially looking at a slightly reductive wine then the problem can get worse. If you’re then using a screw cap with very, efficient linings that completely seal the bottle of any oxygen at all, then that’s exactly what I was.

Susie: Thinking that, you know, it often seems to be with screw caps, screw capped wines, that we think of these slight issues. I mean, a bit of reduction though, can be quite nice, can’t it?

Sietze Wijma: True. And then also you’re looking at slightly different compounds than this one. And indeed, the right compounds at the right concentration can also give impressions even of, mineral qualities. So indeed, that can lead to some positive attributes in wine

Peter: Would that be the right amounts of methyl mercaptan or would it be other sulphur containing compounds?

Sietze Wijma: Other compounds. And this is something where research is lacking a little bit. We have identified one compound called benzel, mercaptan. And that explains some cases of, minerality. but there’s probably also other compounds involved that contribute to that phenomenon. Yeah, but there’s, I think science over the next couple of years will shed a bit more light on that.

Susie: That’ll, be interesting really, in terms.

Peter: Of this block drains, Camembert, cabbage type aromas. This could be because the winemaking was slightly off or because the clothes. If it comes in a screw cap, you could open the wine and it could smell like this. Let’s, let’s forget light stripe for a second. If you open the wine that smells a bit like this, is there anything you can do about it? Or is this terminal?

Sietze Wijma: That’s, that’s a good point. And this is one of the few faults where you can do something about it. You can decant it, or just use other ways to expose the wine to oxygen. And then this is a pretty volatile compound and sulphur compounds in general and some of that will indeed waft off when it’s just exposed to air. So indeed this can be to some extent corrected. This is one of the slightly more stable sulphur compounds. It works best with the hydrogen sulphide smell. So the boiled egg smell. If a wine smells of that and you decant it or you just swirl a lot for example, swirl vigorously then yeah, indeed you can get rid of some of that boiled egg smell.

Peter: So if you’ve got a screw cap wine you open it smells like boiled eggs. If you just aerate it a bit, throw it around a bit actually it might, that might make it better. Totally good to know.

Susie: Yeah.

Peter: And just, just finally to touch on. This can also as we said you come from light strike so and that’s where you, the bottle has just been left exposed to light too long and this is this, this, this chemical reactions happen in this horrible smelling exactly.

Sietze Wijma: Compounds developed and there’s a few effects. So it’s indeed sulphur compounds forming like these ones. It’s also stripping some, some wine from its aroma compounds as a result of light exposure. So there’s some, some things that happen but methyl mercaptan is one of the compounds that you will find.

Susie: Okay so first off this reduction thing may be something you can do something about if your wine smells like stinky sulphur farty eggs. Maybe it’s come from a screw cap bottle or can you can aerate it, decant it, swirl it, whatever and that might help if indeed it is hydrogen sulphide or. We did actually ask about using a copper coin, a 2 pence piece or whatever and see TZ says the logic of using copper does work. It binds to the thials or my captains, but equally it’s not super effective and it can make the wine taste metallic or dirty.

00:25:00

Susie: So maybe on balance not the best thing to do.

Peter: It’s still fun dropping a copper coin into your wine see if it helps out, isn’t it? But yeah, it’s a shame anyway. Fair enough. But I do like the idea that this is a fault you can potentially remedy. You assume most of these faults are terminal, don’t you?

Susie: Yeah.

Peter: And good to touch on light strike as well. if you want to learn more about that, do cheque out our episode on that. What is a scandalous situation and getting worse. it was also interesting to explore this kind of whole area of reduction, which is complex and much misunderstood.

Susie: Yeah. I mean, because sometimes it’s referred to, ah, as a positive, which we also discussed in our Mystery of Minerality episode in season four. And it can be seen as a positive in terms of tasters perceiving it as minerality or that struck match flinty character. Or a reductive winemaking approach can be aimed at retaining fresh fruit in wine But generally speaking, negative sulphide characters from inappropriate reduction are not pleasant at all.

Peter: And so you can testify from painful personal experience right onto a particularly topical fault.

Susie: Oh, I don’t like that. Gosh, no, I really don’t. No, that’s not a fault I can, get my head around.

Peter: Yeah, but what does that. What does that smell like? It almost smells like burnt celery to me. But then I do wonder, because I hate celery, if everything I don’t like smells vaguely of celery some way.

Sietze Wijma: Let’s zoom into the burnt aspect.

Peter: Okay.

Susie: Yeah.

Sietze Wijma: This is, This is very smoky, isn’t it? I always.

Susie: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That sort of rubber, but I think rubbery and smoky. Yeah, they seem to go together slightly, but yes. Burnt tires. That is smoky. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Peter: So what are we tasting here? What is this?

Sietze Wijma: So this is smoke tainted wine

Susie: This is smoked.

Sietze Wijma: Indeed.

Susie: And it’s particularly horrid, isn’t it?

Sietze Wijma: Indeed. Anyway, so it’s present in red wines. What we’re looking at here here is, in the event of wildfires, if you’re unlucky, then the smoke from those wildfires can travel into the vineyard and when they’re ripening grapes there, then the smoke aroma will attach to certain components of the grapevine. And then when you make wine out of those grapes, then that smoke flavour will end up in the wine eventually. And it’s a problem with red wines because the smoke aroma attaches to the skins as well as some other components, such as the stems. But, if you’re using a pulp only, as in white wine making, and if you’re very careful, then you’re not getting that smoke flavour in your wine

Peter: So it’s less of a risk. Smoke taint is less of a risk in white wine than it is in red wine

Sietze Wijma: Exactly, yeah. Ah, you still need to be careful. So you need to employ winemaking techniques such as those used in Champagne, where you’re using whole bunches and like, very gentle pressing not to get too much extraction from the skins.

Susie: Yeah.

Sietze Wijma: Otherwise you still can potentially get a smoke. Smoke tainted wine But in general, yeah, it’s a problem with reds and not so much with whites.

Susie: Okay.

Sietze Wijma: And this is, Yeah, although we understand many of the mechanisms, wildfires are increasingly common in the face of climate change. So especially regions like, Australia, California, they really suffer from this problem. And you might see this, this particular fault more often in the. In the years to come.

Susie: So this is one to look out for.

Sietze Wijma: Yes.

Susie: Not. Not nice smoke. That’s.

Sietze Wijma: Yeah, exactly.

Peter: Because you might think there’s.

Susie: Sometimes we do describe wine just smoky.

Peter: Exactly.

Susie: That can be positive in a nice way.

Peter: Right.

Sietze Wijma: And then it develops differently because it’s also indeed extracted from oak barrels. And that’s the same compound. I haven’t mentioned the name of the compound. This is guaiacol.

Susie: Guaiacol.

Sietze Wijma: Guaiacol. Guaiacol. It belongs to the family of phenols, so, phenolic compounds. And indeed, when you’re barrel ageing wine you’re also getting lower levels of this compound. So maybe not as extreme as you’re smelling here. And then it will also be surrounded by the more positive, like vanilla, clove flavours, and then the overall impression is much better than what you’re smelling here.

Susie: But it is the same compound.

Sietze Wijma: Yes, it’s the same compound, yeah.

Susie: Okay, interesting.

Peter: So if it’s in excess, we’ve got a problem. And as far as I understand, with this taint, what makes it very dangerous is that you might not be able to smell it or detect it early on, let’s say, in the winemaking phase, but then it might develop in bottle further down the line. Is that right?

Sietze Wijma: Yes, that’s a very good point. So let’s start off with the ripening grapes. If there’s been a smoke incident, then the grapes themselves don’t taste of smoke. So that’s not a way to find out if they’ve been affected or not. What happens is the smoke aroma compound, guaiacol attaches to certain sugar groups that you find just beneath, the grape skin and in that bound form. So when it’s attached to that sugar molecule, it doesn’t have any flavour, at all. So you need it to be released or freed up. And some of that happens during fermentation. So if the problem is very serious, you can already notice that straight away during fermentation because yeast is able to release that smoke flavour, but some of it releases during ageing. So, like during, cask ageing. but even bottle ageing and there’s also some evidence that it can release in the mouth because there’s in your saliva, there are certain enzymes that are also able to break up, up that link

00:30:00

Sietze Wijma: between the smoke aroma and the sugar compound from, grapes.

Susie: So that is dangerous, isn’t it?

Sietze Wijma: True, yeah. And what most winemakers do is they will pick a couple of bunches from the harvest, so a select few, and then they ferment it and force age it. So they’re going to apply a lot of heat and sort of force out that smoke.

Susie: Yes.

Sietze Wijma: and then to see if it’s there. Exactly, yeah. And then if it’s free of smoke aroma, then they think, okay, it’s fine, we can proceed with the rest of the batch and we can make wine out of it.

Peter: So you have to do analysis. While if you think this has affected your wine you need to analyse it properly as a winemaker to make sure that it’s not going to develop this character in the bottle further down the line.

Sietze Wijma: True, yeah. And if you’re doing it by smell, then you do need to have the force ageing in a lab. They could also detect the bound version of the smoke aroma, so you could send it into a lab and cheque. Cheque for these, aromas. But, yeah, it’s a tricky one to work with for sure. I was talking to a Australian wine educator the other day, and he was talking about the 2020 vintage, which had a lot of smoke taint issues. And their solution was to actually distil the wine and then turn it into hand sanitizer. And at the time we had the COVID pandemic, so everyone. Well, at least they put it into, use. But then even when using the hand sanitizer, that smoke smell was still coming through.

Peter: Really?

Sietze Wijma: Yeah. So it’s quite persistent.

Peter: Goodness.

Susie: Yeah.

Sietze Wijma: Yeah.

Susie: So smoke taint. Another one where a bit of guaiacol, for example, from oak barrels is fine, but too much, for example, from wildfires, is painful. And it can hide itself in the wine too.

Peter: It’s a stealthy bugger, isn’t it? You know, as Seetsa said, it can literally appear in your mouth, you know, when your saliva acts on it and not before. So, you know, that’s a reason to taste wine as well as smell it, to cheque that it’s okay, that’s for starters. Or, you know, it can hide in the wine content and only appear over time in the bott. So either way, it’s a big headache for winemakers. particularly tricky. Now, wildfires are becoming more widespread and common as a result of climate change. And not just in Australia and California either. We’re seeing them all over, aren’t we? Portugal’s had some this year. Spain isn’t immune. Chile gets them. Gris.

Susie: Yeah. And it can be absolutely devastating for producers because it’s not just an odd faulty bottle, is it? It’s a whole batch of wine possibly even a whole year’s crop. I mean, if you remember, our. Our first ever wine Blast episode was called Australia on Fire. And in that year, 2020, for example, iconic Aussie producer Clonakilla decided not to release any wine at all because of smoke taint concerns. And it’s that serious.

Peter: Yeah. Okay, so a very current one there. Smoke taint is on the rise, so keep an eye out. let’s move on to another couple of compounds typical of a much discussed fault. And just to clarify, sulphur dioxide is a widely used substance for winemaking hygiene and can help control a lot of these faults we’re talking about. Okay, now that smells quite medicinal, M To me.

Sietze Wijma: Wonderful.

Peter: That smells kind of. Yeah, like sticking plasters.

Sietze Wijma: Fantastic.

Susie: Yeah, it is really minty medicinal, isn’t it?

Peter: But there is a sort of mintiness to it. It’s a sort of medicinal camphor. You know, almost like tarmac camphor Y type aroma, but something you’d associate with medicinal.

Sietze Wijma: Yes.

Susie: M. It’s slightly leathery, though there’s a slight, gamey leatheriness as well to it.

Sietze Wijma: So lovely.

Susie: Are we into. Are we into sort of Britannia mice type territory? Yes, okay.

Sietze Wijma: Precisely. This is a brettanamyces smell. The, medicinal smell kind of comes across as bandaid to many people, but also as if you’re walking into a hospital and you’re smelling like a solution like tcp. Yes, but M, then there’s also many animal like descriptors, such as sheep’s wool. Leather. Indeed. Another common descriptor. And barnyards horse blanket, another famous descriptor here. So this is one of those compounds as well that has so many different descriptors. yeah, it’s perceived very differently.

Susie: Yes. I mean, I think, Yeah, I often quite like a little bit of Bretan.

Peter: A bit of sort of wildness, a bit of sort of funky funkiness.

Susie: Funkiness.

Sietze Wijma: This is super funky.

Susie: Yeah, this one probably isn’t also. Again, it’s something that I would expect in a red wine Strange to find it in a way. Yes.

Sietze Wijma: Yeah. Yeah, let’s talk about that. There’s a couple of factors. Why you see Bretonomyces more in red wines than in white wines. And one of them is you need at least a little bit of skin contact, because Bretonomyces is a type of yeast that can metabolise some amino acids pulled from the skins. And those are compounds that typically, saccharomyces, which is the conventional type of yeast, does not use. So you need some skin contact. Also, bread doesn’t, deal very well with sulphur dioxide. And we know that sulphur dioxide is more effective at high acidity.

00:35:00

Sietze Wijma: So, white wines typically have higher acidity, so they’re better protected against bread. And then one other feature of bread is really likes to hide in a wooden barrel. And yeah, you do see why a, barrel is whites, of course, but it’s also more common in red wines. So those are a couple of, reasons why it gets more in red.

Peter: And just to go back a step as well. Brettanomyces is a yeast.

Sietze Wijma: Yes. Maybe I was jumping ahead, maybe just.

Peter: Dial back a little bit and explain the very basic, basic things that were pathways that we’re dealing with here.

Sietze Wijma: Okay, so let’s start maybe with the normal type of yeast. Saccharomyces, is used in all wines. It’s really effective at, producing alcohol from sugar, and it does so in a very reliable way, typically quite fast. So like in about two weeks you have your wine ready to go. Bread, is a type of yeast that works a lot slower. so it likes to take its time. but it’s also quite efficient at living, ah, in a, in a nutrient, low, low nutrient environment. Sometimes I make the analogy here with a runner. So you have like, marathon runners and sprinters. Right. And Brett is more like a marathon runner. So it’s very slow, but it’s, it can sustain for a much longer time. And saccharomyces, so our normal sugar yeast is more like a sprinter. So super fast, but maybe doesn’t have the endurance that Brett has. Okay, so maybe that’s more of basic level.

Peter: So what, what does. I assume the yeast itself doesn’t have a smell. So what are the compounds that it produces to give? What are we smelling?

Sietze Wijma: Okay, we’re smelling something called 4 ethyl phenol, which is often abbreviated to 4EP. And that is something that, yeah, it’s quite unique to bread. So we know that there’s bacteria and yeast involved in wine production, but none of them really produce that Compound 4 EP. So that’s a really unique smell. You really only get from that type of yeast. And it doesn’t need to be a, fully Bretonomyces M Fermented wine to get this aroma. So only a little bit of, fermentation alongside a normal saccharomyces fermentation can already give you that, smell.

Peter: M. That’s really interesting in the way that you were saying as well. There’s something. Sometimes we’ve tasted wines that have a bit of Bretti Carro, and it’s maybe sometimes it’s more a red wine that’s manifests itself more as a kind of rustic gamey, like meat that’s been hung a bit. So it’s a bit high and it’s a bit weird. But actually it kind of works. And it works in the context of that hearty.

Susie: It gives it some almost extra character.

Peter: So is this one of those faults that may be a tiny bit. If it’s hiding in there, and you don’t necessarily know. This can be something that’s good and a complexing agent. but if it’s too much, it’s really bad.

Sietze Wijma: Yes. And also because bread is able to produce more than one aroma. And that’s why I bought this next glass as well. I don’t know if you have.

Peter: So this is number seven.

Sietze Wijma: Yeah.

Peter: Now, this, to me does not. I’m not. I’m not getting on with this glass at all. This smells. I mean, this smells disgusting to me. This smells vomitous. This smells sort of.

Susie: I don’t. You see? So maybe this is where we differ. Because to me.

Peter: Is that all right?

Susie: It’s just not. There’s nothing much. It doesn’t bother me, really. Yeah, yeah. So I must be much less sensitive to whatever this is.

Peter: No, you just got something wrong with it. But we’ve always known that. No, I really. Okay, that’s really.

Susie: What are you smelling then?

Peter: Well, like I said, like vomity type. Type.

Sietze Wijma: Most common descriptor. Other one is sweaty feet because there’s certain bacteria.

Peter: You’ve been inured because of my sweaty feet.

Susie: I’m so used to sweaty.

Peter: All these years you’ve got used to it and you can’t smell it anymore. You blank it out. So it. Is that because it’s slightly cheesy? Yeah. M. something decaying slightly as well. And. Yeah. Okay, so Britanny can produce that. That type aroma as well as the both. Both of these types of aroma.

Sietze Wijma: It will always produce these two. as well as a third one called 4ethyl gul 4eg, which produces a bit more of that leathery, gamey type aromas that you were Talking about maybe.

Peter: That’S the one we like a bit more.

Sietze Wijma: Yeah, that is definitely receiving usually more favourable responses.

Peter: Okay, maybe that’s what we’re thinking. So less medicinal, gamey, more meaty.

Sietze Wijma: Yes, interesting. But then also within a single compound you’re getting different descriptors because one person says it smells medicinal and someone, somebody else might say that smells like animal, like to me. And then also when I, when I ask like for preference indications, from a group of tasters, you usually will see a couple of people saying, yeah, that smells disgusting to me. And then others say, oh, actually I kind of like that.

Peter: Yeah.

Sietze Wijma: So there’s definitely some individual preferences as well. Well, so yes, within a single compound. But then also because there’s more than one compound, it, it makes it so that there’s not such a thing as like a single bread smell. But it can also show itself in different ways.

Susie: Different ways.

Peter: So this sort of slightly rogue yeast can produce lots of different, manifest itself in lots of different ways. Some of which might be okay to some people, but some of which can be

00:40:00

Peter: quite offensive.

Sietze Wijma: Yes, and there’s some reasons for that. And a lot of research has been done about this by the Australian wine Research Institutes. I love their, them. They have looked at some like DNA profiling of bread and then they realised there’s actually many different bread strains. Much like there’s different grape varieties, there’s also different types of bread and they make all of these compounds in different proportions. So a, bread in France, for example, might smell slightly different from the bread in Australia. And we also know that if you pick one of those strains, just focus on a single bread strain and you ferment it with different types of wine you also get different results. So like a bread infected Cabernet Sauvignon smells slightly different from a bread infected Pinot Noir. So there’s a lot of, things to bread.

Susie: Okay, so this is all fascinating and I’m not just talking about your cheesy feet. The compound in that second glass, number seven, was isovaleric acid, by the way. No, it’s more the fact that this rogue Bretonomyces yeast can produce a range of characters. Some pretty nasty, but others quite, quite edgy and interesting. And how those characters are perceived will depend partly on how the wine is made, what the wine is made of and where it comes from, but also partly on whose taste.

Peter: Absolutely. It’s intriguing, isn’t it? And I’ve read about some producers who purposefully try to harness it in their wines, you know, and of course, it’s a key feature in certain beers, like Belgian lambic beers as well. But the problem is it’s inherently uncontrollable. so, you know, one bottle could end up being really interesting and gamey, and another could be, you know, hideously medicinal, sort of horrendously astringent tannins. Because that’s what it can do to red wines, can’t it? You know, it really dries them out.

Susie: So it’s an intriguing one, isn’t it? And another one that may be more and more prevalent given the popularity of high ph, long barrel aged reds and wines with residual sugar or low sulphur or low intervention natural wines. And one to watch out for. Right, let’s put cheesy feet and barnyards behind us, thank God. And let’s get back to the tasting. Actually, like you said, it’s really good to keep going back to the neutral wine the one with nothing. Nothing. So I’ve smelt my neutral. Is that quite, quite unusual?

Peter: For me, that is. Yeah. That’s. I don’t want to prejudice you, but that’s very pungent.

Susie: Oh, yes.

Peter: Yeah. But it’s a smell different. I think so. And it’s a smell I don’t find too, too unpleasant. I mean, for me, that’s very green. It’s very.

Susie: But it’s also like a really, like a really good quality cheddar rind. That sort of dry, yeasty green. Do you know, you know when you smell Montgomery cheddar and you get the really dry rind of it? I get that, but I, I know that I always smell that with this kind of smell. It’s the way I would describe it.

Peter: It’s very. Yeah, but it’s, it’s.

Susie: But it’s also green. It’s green, but dusty green.

Peter: Dusty, dusty, stalky green. It’s not like green pepper. It’s like a pepper that’s been dried and kind of. And smoked and reduced to a powder. Yeah, it’s just. There’s a sort of sort.

Susie: So it’s a kind of smell I always smell on South African Sauvignon Blanc, for example.

Sietze Wijma: Oh, yeah.

Peter: But, you know, I think. I think, I think I know what this is, but tell us what this is, because I. Yeah, so this is quite a.

Sietze Wijma: Quite a niche fault.

Peter: Okay, can I tell you, Can I ask you.

Sietze Wijma: Yes.

Peter: Is this ladybird?

Sietze Wijma: Yes.

Peter: Ladybug. Yeah, it’s ladybird tape.

Sietze Wijma: Yeah.

Peter: it’s. It’s. Okay, tell us what the hell is ladybug? Ladybird.

Sietze Wijma: So, yeah, in order to understand that, you need to go back into 1999, where this was first a problem in North America. They noticed an unusual high population of ladybirds, beetles in the vineyards and then suddenly all of the wine started to smell like this. So, I like you descript. Maybe it’s part of cheddar. Indeed. I didn’t know that. But, common descriptors are, earthy. So like dark soil potato skin. Another beautiful descriptor here that, these.

Peter: Potato skins are really good one actually.

Sietze Wijma: so basically whenever those ladybird beetles are in the vineyard and they end up in the crush during harvest, then they give off this particular untypical smell to wine and they proved it because they captured a little bit of beetles and they soaked it into wine and then indeed it started to give off the same smell. so then they also did some research about what could be the potential compound and how can we prevent it. And since then that’s been reported, I think in another two vintages. But it’s pretty uncommon fault. But it’s very useful to be aware of. And indeed, many wine makers, during sorting of grapes, they will pick out the ladybirds beetles because they know that they, it can give off a flavour. They’ve also calculated how much of those beetles you need and it’s about one and a half per kilogramme of grapes. So you need quite a lot. But actually that, yeah, you can definitely get to those levels at,

Peter: If you have more than one and a half ladybirds per, kilo of grapes, you’re going to have a problem.

Sietze Wijma: Yes, exactly.

Susie: One and a half.

Sietze Wijma: So that’s like the tolerance.

Peter: They’re only going one way in the wine vat, aren’t they?

Sietze Wijma: Yeah.

Peter: So, okay, so if you get

00:45:00

Peter: an infestation of ladybirds and they get into the wine and cause this and it is very sort of earthy, dusty.

Susie: It’s not that they are putting something onto the grapes, it’s just the fact they are actually in the crush themselves.

Sietze Wijma: Yes, exactly.

Peter: So is that just their bodies leeching out this?

Sietze Wijma: Yeah. It’s also been identified in their excrement. So even in there.

Peter: Oh, no.

Sietze Wijma: Hang off in there. Yeah.

Susie: Lady bird poo.

Peter: Lady bird poo.

Susie: Lady bird poo.

Peter: What are you doing to us?

Susie: Fabulous.

Peter: We invited you into our house for a nice time and you serving us.

Susie: Ladybird with lady bird poo.

Peter: God’s sake.

Susie: That’s really fascinating. The potato skin thing is really interesting because, you know, those sort of things where you. I would never have thought of that. But it’s like when you take them fresh out of the earth.

Peter: yes.

Susie: And that’s the smell you get. Not when it’s been baked in the oven for an hour. It’s lifting almost when you’re cleaning the earth off them. Yeah, yeah, you do.

Sietze Wijma: if you look at this compound, chemically, it belongs to the. The class of methoxypyrazines.

Susie: Oh, yes.

Sietze Wijma: You get some of them in Sauvignon Blanc as well. You briefly mentioned that.

Peter: And so the whole green pepper thing that I mentioned, it’s sort of not dissimilar to this.

Sietze Wijma: Exactly, yeah. Ah. There are two different compounds, so, you can abbreviate them. One is, IP mp. That’s this one. And the other one’s ibmp. really closely related chemically, but slightly different origins, in wine And one of them comes across more like green bell pepper. You find it more Sauvignon Blanc.

Susie: Yeah, I definitely get that in that particular. But I don’t. I don’t have a problem with that at all, actually, as faults go, that’s, that’s quite nice.

Peter: You’re quite partial to it.

Susie: I like little ladybug poo. Well, there we go. Who knew?

Peter: So you’re partial to a bit of ladybird pooh. There we go. Who knew? Who knew? Now, we all know there are worse poos. worst. That’s not even. That’s a whole other podcast season there. Anyway, we should just clear up that ladybirds are the same thing as ladybugs and lady beetles. For, anyone confused, they’re the small flying, beetly things that, are usually red with black spots. That’s right, isn’t it?

Susie: And you will know if you’ve ever crushed them, as I once did when we had an infestation of them around one of our sash windows and I inadvertently closed it on them. They do smell. Smell pretty noxious when they’re crushed. And so they clearly do have a smell that can transfer to wine

Peter: And I remember this because we discussed it with our great friend and Master of wine mentor, Phil Tuck. may m he rest in peace. when we were training for our NW exam, and he said the 2004 burgundy vintage had this issue, which is why it can have that dusty green bean aroma. You know, I think we thought he was going mad at the time, didn’t we? But it turns out, you know, he was right.

Susie: He was indeed. He usually was, wasn’t he? Okay, so we’re nearing end game. before we got There, See, Tzer showed us two compounds illustrating volatile acidity, or va, which were acetic acid or vinegar, and ethyl acetate, nail varnish remover, both of which, again, we didn’t find too objectionable. It’s another one of those where a little bit can work, but in excess, it’s overpowering. And there are actually legal limits, aren’t there, for VA in m Wine?

Peter: Yeah. VA actually reminded me of my homemade kombucha, which probably says all you need to know about. About that. but Cece explained that, you know, these were formed by bacteria which require oxygen to grow. So acetic acid bacteria, for example. There is an overlap with oxidation here, which we covered earlier with acetaldehyde and so on. But you can tell the difference here, given that acetic acid or vinegar can stimulate not just, our olfactory or smell receptors, but also our trigeminal nerves. Hence, you get that kind of stinging sensation when, you sense it. It’s the same feeling you get with Chile, or when the bubbles from a fizzy drink go up your nose, that sort of thing.

Susie: Yeah, but acetic acid and ethyl acetate are bacterial in origin, whereas acetaldehyde can come from just oxidation alone. And Sietze mentioned that’s why winemakers can be so obsessed with fruit flies at harvest time, because they’re known carriers of this bacteria that can kickstart vinegar formation. So it’s a contamination issue that needs attention from winemakers, for example, by using sulphur dioxide to control it.

Peter: Okay, so at this point, we’d got pretty much to the end of our, little bottles with sisa, but then he announced he had a final ace up his sleeve. What?

Susie: a treat.

Peter: It wasn’t a sample like the previous ones based on the same wine He’d had to brew it up. Bespoke for us, using grape Djuce with added alcohol and then fermenting it with lactic acid bacteria to illustrate a very specific taint, and one that’s only really come to light in recent years, and that is mousiness or athp, and it’s a doozy. So let’s jump back into the tasting by smell.

Sietze Wijma: It smells of grape juice. Maybe you’re getting a little bit some lactic, like, milk or yoghurt notes produced by the lactic acid bacteria. And then when you taste it, it takes about five seconds to develop.

Susie: Yeah.

Sietze Wijma: So initially it seems fine.

Peter: You’re absolutely right.

Susie: And then suddenly you get that.

Sietze Wijma: Suddenly, indeed.

Susie: That’s a

00:50:00

Susie: musty mousey.

Sietze Wijma: Yeah. Ah. Yeah. Suddenly it.

Susie: It’s not very nice, is it?

Peter: Oh, well, what are.

Susie: What, a note to finish?

Peter: It’s the way it develops as well.

Sietze Wijma: Yeah.

Peter: It kind of sneaks up on you and just.

Sietze Wijma: Yeah.

Peter: This kind of dead mouse just jumps.

Susie: Out of you, isn’t it?

Sietze Wijma: Yeah.

Peter: Wow.

Susie: That is really unpleasant.

Sietze Wijma: Yes.

Peter: That’s properly revoked as a compliment. Not many people do. That’s fascinating. Oh, my goodness. Gosh. What?

Susie: Yeah, yeah.

Peter: What an inside.

Susie: You really taste it, though, don’t you?

Sietze Wijma: Yeah.

Susie: Dull.

Peter: I thought ladybug poo was bad enough.

Susie: No, that’s. Ladybug poo is actually much more prevalent, much preferable.

Peter: Oh, my goodness.

Sietze Wijma: And that’s.

Peter: You properly taste it. It’s just sort of. And it’s right there in your mouth, isn’t it? So.

Sietze Wijma: Yeah.

Peter: So this is often. Mousiness has often been related to natural wines. Is that. Is that unfair or is that. Is that a sort of fair summary of where it’s like.

Sietze Wijma: Yeah, it’s not an excuse for, natural winemakers for this flavour to develop, but indeed because of especially low sulphur dioxide and then natural, fermentation as well as malolactic. potentially. Yeah. It can lead indeed to mousiness in natural wines and.

Peter: Sorry, could you just explain to us why it only comes out when you taste it?

Sietze Wijma: Yes. So this is a compound that responds to ph, or in other words, acidity. And wine is acidic by nature, and in that state, this compound doesn’t have any flavour. but when the environment turns into alkaline or basic, so the opposite of acidity, then this flavour becomes flavour active. So then you start to notice it.

Peter: So. On your tongue.

Susie: And that would be in your mouth.

Peter: In your mouth, precisely. Yeah. Okay. You neutralise it as aware and it becomes less acidic, then it comes out.

Sietze Wijma: Yes. And that is because after, swallowing or spitting, your mouth tries to correct the acidity levels and basically it wants more of, like, a neutral level of acidity. And your saliva, is alkaline, so it’s. It’s the opposite of acidic. So what your mouth does is, like, produce a lot of saliva, to. In order to restore that natural balance in your mouth. And then suddenly the mousiness becomes noticeable. Yeah. But if you just have the wine in your mouth, it also doesn’t work because the, acidity is just too powerful. So you need to spit or swallow and then count six seconds or so.

Susie: That’s why we had to wait.

Sietze Wijma: Exactly. And then you start to notice it. Yeah, yeah.

Peter: But if you’re in A natural wine bar. You might want to cheque the wine by tasting it as much as and just paying attention to the aftertaste.

Sietze Wijma: Yeah, perfect. Yeah, That’s a good recommendation. Indeed. That’s a nice brew.

Peter: To natural wine Cease. Thank you very much indeed.

Sietze Wijma: You’re welcome.

Peter: Okay, so, when we got into wine and got married, I never imagined we’d get to a point where we were comparing the relative merits of ladybird poo and dead mouse. We are living the dream.

Susie: Oh, my goodness, how exciting. It doesn’t get more rock and roll than that, does it? but it is another fault that is arguably on the rise, given the increasing popularity of natural or low intervention wines where sulphur dioxide is sometimes avoided or used at very low levels. And it’s a particularly nasty fault because it kind of sneaks up on you and then just when you’ve swallowed the wine and you’re kicking back to enjoy it, it leaps out at you dead mouths.

Peter: And then, you know. This is where we circle back to the delightful William Hansen and say, this is why you need to taste your wine as well as swirl it and sniff it properly to cheque. It’s in condition. This is not something, believe me, you want all your fellow diners or wine lovers to have to experience. the same is with smoke taint, actually. Another one you know, you need to cheque for on the palate, tasting it.

Susie: Well said. Okay, so we said at the top we’d issue some top tips and we have six, six wine Taint tips for you. Number one is always cheque your wine properly before you drink it. Look, smell and taste. Be aware there are lots of potential faults or taints, some of which are becoming more prevalent these days, like light strike, smoke Taint and Brett, there are even some other faults we haven’t covered here, like refermentation in bottle, where the wine is inappropriately fizzy, hazy and. And just tastes weird. There was also a case recently in Europe of champagnes being spiked with MDMA M that led to 11 people being hospitalised and one person actually dying. But the wine would have looked and smelt and tasted totally wrong, so should never have been drunk. Thankfully, such cases are extremely rare. but pay attention. If the wine looks, smells and tastes okay to you, it’s good to go.

Peter: Not everything is a fault is our second top tip. bits of cork floating in your wine are okay. Just fish them out and criticise the person who opened it for you. Sediment in reds or crystalline tartrate crystals in white are generally harmless.

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Peter: Either way you might want to decant the wine off them. and some things at low levels are acceptable, like VA, Brett and some oxidative characters.

Susie: Okay, so number three, top tip. If you do find your wine is faulty, politely but firmly return it to the waiter or sommelier or shop in question and all you have to do is say, I’m not sure about this wine it seems faulty. Can you please exchange or replace it? Good restaurants and shops should definitely replace or refund with absolutely no quibbles. If you’re returning it to a shop, take the bottle, which obviously needs to be nearly full with you to show them. And we’d say keep it well sealed in the fridge until you can go back to the shop.

Peter: Top tip number four, some faults you can remedy. for example hydrogen sulphide, rotten eggs can blow off with aeration. So you know, decanter into a jug or back into the bottle or just swirl it in the glass, see if that helps.

Susie: M Top tip number five, some faults are our fault. Leave a bottle of wine open too long and it will oxidise. Leave a bottle of wine out under bright kitchen lights or in the sunlight, especially those in clear, colourless flint bottles, and it will become light struck. So keep your bottles in a dark place if you can, and ideally not too warm. And if you want to keep a bottle after opening, reseal it as well as possible and keep it in the fridge and that will slow down bad things like oxidation.

Peter: Top tip number six, final top tip, don’t join the wine fault police. ignorance is sometimes bliss when it comes to tainted wine There’s a temptation when you know all of this, to see a fault in every wine or just to, you know, you might want to just parade your nerdy knowledge. As ever with wine focus on the positives. It’s only when the negatives are overwhelming your pleasurable experience that you should take action. As William Hanson might say, no need to make an entire production out of it.

Susie: And there is of course an argument that wine without any so called faults would be a less interesting proposition. I’m not sure we entirely buy that. And see, Tzer certainly doesn’t because many of the things we experienced have no place whatsoever in our glass. But again, we don’t want to be overly puritanical about this and we have to remember one person’s fault can be another person’s intriguing rough edge.

Peter: And that I think is a great note to end on. by way of closing summary, wine taints are very real. Faults include cork taint oxidation, sulphides, light strike, smoke taint, brettanomyces, VA, even ladybug taint and mousiness. some of these are less common than they were, but others are becoming more prevalent. So be sure to smell and taste your wine to cheque for faults. If it’s off, send it back and get another bottle. No need to make an entire production out of it. But like life is too short for.

Susie: Faulty wine thanks to Sietze Wijma do check out his website theartoftasting.nl and maybe order one of his tasting kits or book in for a course with him. It’s really fun. I don’t even think we embarrassed ourselves too much, did we?! Do also check out our show notes for more details on susiandpeter.com and please remember to rate, review and recommend Wine Blast. Finally – thanks for listening. Until next time. Cheers!

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