Perhaps with too much fervor, lovers of natural wines defend flags that those inclined to more technological wines use as a weapon to criticize the bottles we drink. And, yes, there are indeed two opposing sides in a low-intensity wine war.
Of the numerous fronts of the dispute, from the banal use of sulfites to the ontological discussion about the natural term associated with wine, we will focus on what the traditionalist canon has always indicated as defects and that many fans of minimal intervention define as characteristics neutral, leaving their categorization, positive or negative, to each one. To try to be as specific as possible, I will put the magnifying glass on the four defects or characteristics that we find most frequently when uncorking a bottle of natural wine: the brettthe volatile, the surí and the reduction.
A wine has brett when its smell is reminiscent of a stable, horse sweat, grass or, in short, a farm. A priori, this definition can be disorienting in a society that is increasingly detached from rural life. How many recognize the smell of a horse? However, our hypothalamus clearly identifies these primitive outpourings.
Mireia Pujol-Busquets makes natural and organic wines at Celler de les Aus and Alta Alella, respectively. In addition, she has a degree in Biology and tastes professionally to detect the slightest deviations in a wine. Her wines, even the most radical ones, are exquisitely precise and lack the type of aromas we are dealing with. “The bretts They are yeasts that appear during barrel aging, especially in red wines, although they can also originate in the vineyard. To avoid them, it is essential to work with very healthy grapes and very strict hygienic conditions in the winery, because it is very difficult to eliminate the brett of a wine,” says Pujol-Busquets. And he adds: “It produces wild wines, with animal aromas, and although some consumers and winemakers like to find it in very subtle quantities, for me it is a defect.”
A little bit of brett, only in reds, provides rusticity and complexity to some Rhône wines. Alice Feiring, in The Battle for Wine and Love or How I Saved the World from Parkerization (Editorial Tusquets, 2010) refers to one of the Côte-Rôtie in these terms: “It speaks with the power of a muscular, purebred racehorse”, but it is also characteristic of the Lebanese winery Château Musar and is tolerated in wines Italian varieties sangiovese and barberand in cabernets from Napa (California). This would be the classic criterion, but there are other types of opinions.
Benji Sher is a sommelier and together with the sommelier Ida Mogren he has founded Suc Suc, an educational center on natural wine in Barcelona that questions paradigms and proposes new tasting criteria. “In small doses it can add complexity to a wine. In certain wines that age in barrels, such as the gran reserva from La Rioja or some Barolo, these aromas are positively valued with words such as leather, meat or blue cheese,” says Sher, who adds that “in these cases, it is accepted, but In natural wines it is usually considered a defect. For me, a wine with brett “I dislike it when the smell of horse completely covers up the primary, fruity and floral aromas that come from the grapes.”
Between a refreshing acidity and Almax
Grapes are rich in malic acid —from the Latin, maelus, apple—, which is transformed into milder lactic acid during an oenological process called malolactic fermentation. The malic acid gives off an aroma of cider and the lactic acid, almost exclusive to red wines, of Frigopie.
But acetic acid can also appear in wine, which we call “the volatile” and which is characteristic of vinegar. Many natural wines boast a generous volatile and that evokes chopped wine, but does volatile really denote poor condition? “If we understand chopped or spoiled as vinegary, yes. Because volatile acidity measures acetic acid, which some Denominations of Origin tolerate certain levels because it provides freshness,” says Mireia Pujol-Busquets. And she points out: “Some Denominations of Origin tolerate certain levels because it provides freshness. To avoid volatile contamination, again, it is important to have very healthy grapes and, in addition, to control the skins that are in suspension during alcoholic fermentation with pumping over, to prevent acetic bacteria from proliferating.”
Acidity is not bad in itself, in fact it gives fresh wines, with the ability to age, easy to drink and is typical of revered grapes, such as Riesling, which declines in almost sharp examples that are so sharp. But the volatile is not this type of acidity.
“I have been advocating natural wines for a decade and, personally, the volatile continues to be difficult for me, because I don't like vinegary flavors in food either,” says Benji Sher. “But everyone has their own tolerance level! When there is a well-integrated touch in a wine that lacks other types of acidity, like many from the Mediterranean basin, it gives a sensation of freshness. It is a shame that certifying bodies or importing agencies from other countries reject perfectly balanced wines due to their level of volatility in an analysis.”
Surí, when a wine smells like cat pee
Many define surí as the smell of cat pee, but in the original French it smells like rodent urination — surí comes from souris, mouse-. As in the case of brettthis defect can be a virtue—or at least, a characteristic accent—in wines made with sauvignon blanc. Sometimes it is due to an early harvest, with the grapes still green, but surí is a very complex issue and could have other triggers. “The aroma of suri can appear during malolactic fermentation and is released by a molecule called pyridine,” says Pujol-Busquets.
In the case of surí, I am completely partial: I am against it. In fact, a simple internet search on this foul molecule returns the following result: “Pyridine is a colorless liquid with an unpleasant odor, similar to spoiled fish.” It seems that, at least in this article, there is consensus about its lack of grace. “The surí is my limit. It causes an aftertaste of bad humidity — mold, wet cookies… — well, it makes me sick,” Sher confesses.
Reduction, burnt horn or rotten eggs
During the fermentation of any food, sulfites are generated. They are present in wine, cheese, chocolate or sauerkraut, for example. These natural sulfites – they should not be confused with the added ones, although they are the same thing – act as preservatives and in the wine they stink like hell, although their Mephistophelian aroma disappears with oxygenation, that is, by pouring the wine into a decanter or stirring it in the Cup.
Thus, although the same fermentation generates a minimum dose of sulfites in any bottle of wine, no matter how natural it may be, that does not explain why some bottles smell terrible. “It usually occurs due to an absence of nitrogen in the must that is easily assimilated by the yeasts, but reduction is easy to solve and is always better than oxidation,” Pujol-Busquets clarifies.
Some reductions have their followers. The flavor of a reduced wine can be reminiscent of corn quicos or the skin of sausages such as fuet, so if you like any of the above you might enjoy analogy. On the other hand, wines from volcanic soils can give off reductive aromas that, in their case, are considered a legitimate seal of terroir.
“Reduction is used as an umbrella term for a series of sulfuric aromas that can appear in a wine that has not seen oxygen during its production and aging. It ranges from the pleasant (match and match) to the unpleasant (rotten eggs). Working without oxygen is a way to protect the wine against the consequences of excess oxygen—risk of volatile and suri—so it is often a strategic decision by the producer,” says Sher, adding: “The sulfuric aromas coming from “Volcanic soils give more smoke, combustion and even pure sulfur, but the big difference is that they do not disappear, they are an integral part of the wine.”
Natural does not equal defective
That a wine is natural does not mean that it eliminates the previous defects, not even one of them, in the same way that technological wines are not synonymous with quality. In Spain—not to mention France, where they are quite ahead of us—there are more and more sin-free natural wines.
Bruant is a natural cava made by Celler de les Aus, the winery run by Mireia Pujol-Busquets, absolutely impeccable. Equally immaculate are the wines of Esmeralda García, a Segovian producer of great Verdejos, or the monastrells that Júlia Casado bottles at the top of Murcia. José Miguel Márquez, founder of the Marenas winery, established in Montilla, province of Córdoba, preserves bottles from his first vintages —1999 and 2000—, which have aged magnificently, and the Ruiz López family, in their Uva de Vida winery, takes forward some tremendous Graciano reds without added chemicals.
As Pujol-Busquets points out, the secret of these producers, and many others, is to work with healthy grapes and with maximum neatness in the winery, there is no more, but no less: it requires a great effort and constant attention to the vineyard. and to the oenological processes. It's worth it, this way they get wines that could bring defenders of natural and technological things to the negotiating table.
#wine #smells #horse #sweat