Ok.  I know I’m not totally alone in thinking that Brett is a flaw.  Or at least I’m pretty sure I’m not alone.

Helloooooooooo?  Is anyone out there….???

The minor bought of vinous paranoia has to do with what seems like my inclusion in rarefied company, and I mean that in the “two percent of patients have a severe allergic reaction” sense or rarefied, and not in the “Emmy-award-winning drama for the seventh consecutive year” sense.  You see, sometimes, it feels like I’m part of a group, rather tiny in number, that thinks a certain range of smells – barnyard, band-aid, and (putting it in the most polite context I can muster) “dirty diaper” – aren’t indicative of terroir, or the almost-as-ubiquitous “character.”

Call it the anti-brett clan, maybe?

It’s the group that classifies the presence of brettanomyces (a yeast that imparts aromas of band-aid, barnyard, and sometimes meaty funk to wines) as… well, as a flaw.  No different than the unpleasant, musty odor cork taint, or the rotten-egg stench of sulfer.

Especially since, with increasing frequency, I seem to disagree with both the famous and not-so-famous wine critics and reviewers on how wines should be rated (in terms of recommending them to others) when those wine (to me, at least) very clearly display classic (nasty!) characteristics of brett.

I know that wine appreciation is subjective, and one person’s swill is another person’s prestige cuvee, but do people really enjoy the smell of band-aids and barnyard in their wines?  I sure as hell don’t – and while I enjoy a touch of funk in some of my wines (the kind that smells like Slim Jims, or smoked meat), my prevailing thought for some time has been that brett is actually a wine flaw – yes, even the interesting meaty funkiness that I happen to… well, not like exactly, but not hate, either.

I say this because brett yeasts cannot yet be controlled, and until such time as they can be controlled (so that winemakers can ‘dial-in’ the amount – and type, as there are many brett yeasts and they impart different ‘flavors’ of off-beat funk) then whether or not the wine has pleasant smoked meat characteristics or instead smells like one of my daughter’s diaper blow-outs is almost entirely dictated by chance.

The aspect that has me questioning my sanity in all of this is that other people seem to like those wines – lots of people… and in some cases, they seem to really like them.

Other people like Robert Parker and Stephen Tanzer, for example…

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Earlier this week, I shared a brief twitter exchange with Wine Spectator senior editor James Molesworth, kicked off by a tweet about a Chinon tasting that I noticed on James’ twitter feed:

“That was a tough flight – I’m more tolerant than most, but someone needs to send the brett police to Chinon…”

Essentially, James and I briefly discussed the fact that Chinon (in France’s Loire Valley) would be making some lovely Cabernet Franc-based wines, if only the fruit in those wines wasn’t buried under the smell of barnyard.

Yes, I’m talking about brett.  Again.

I can’t help it, I don’t want my wine to smell like poop, okay?  There, I admit it!

And with the samples coming my way lately from Chinon and nearby Bourgueil, poop is exactly what I’m finding.  Here are a couple of examples that found their way onto the wine “mini-review” feed:

• 07 Domaine Bernard Baudry Chinon: With that much brett masking the red fruit, a more suitable name might be "Domaine Barnyard Baudry" $18 C- #
• 06 Domaine Guion Cuvee Prestige (Bourgueil): Brambly red fruit & spice peeking out their heads from under a pound or so of fertilizer $14 C- #

James’ tweet really got me thinking that a) it’s NOT just me, and b) my samples might actually be indicative of the general quality of those regions’ wines.

Sorry to those who really dig Chinon, but I don’t subscribe to the belief that the concept of terroir extends to poop-aroma-inducing yeasts (and possibly dirty winemaking equipment).  When the day comes that winemakers deliberately cultivate the wild yeasts that induce those off-odors, and it can be proven scientifically, then I’ll stop calling it a flaw and instead refer to it as a poor winemaking decision.

But until then, it’s a flaw.

Cheers!

The International Malbec Days Festival (May 20th-23rd, 2010 in Cahors, France) is now behind us.  Let’s take the Good, Bad and (in some cases, the very) Ugly of the festival, in reverse order:

The Ugly: Event Coordination and “Wines that Smell of Donkey Poop”

Organizing and executing a wine industry event the size of the International Malbec Days Festival, one that lasts several days and brings together well over 150 people from a dozen or so countries, is undoubtedly a Herculean undertaking, and one in which the organizers almost failed miserably.  The 2010 version, at turns, bordered on chaos.

This wasn’t great for the wines, either, as Tannic and high-alcohol Malbecs were served in a meeting space that was easily over 80F, depriving even the best from showing themselves gracefully.  The execution against our schedule was poor enough that it became a distraction, as essential personnel (e.g., those organizing the various groups of participants from hotels to the various events) by and large were given little (and in some cases, no) information needed to do their jobs.  At one point, our bus driver got lost in the 2km distance between the airport and our hotel for the final evening – and he was using a GPS system.

Score one for French logistics – that is, if the purpose is to distract you from being able to adequately work and instead is trying to break your will.  I felt bad for our handlers, who were trying to do an impossible job with almost no help from their superiors (I encouraged them to totally dookie sock their bosses, but they didn’t seem too keen on the idea) .

Speaking of dookie: as for the Ugly when it comes to the wines, a not-insubstantial portion of the Cahors Malbecs on display at the event were quite bretty – and not in a “smells kind of like bacon” charming way; they were bretty in a “did I just step in some donkey poop?” way.  Which leads us to…

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WARNING: This is a post for serious wine geeks only.

I’m not joking around. Here’s a test: If the concept of whether or not small doses of Brettanomyces should be considered a wine flaw or not doesn’t excite you, then you might want to skip out on this post.

Because I’m about to extol the virtues of a relatively new wine magazine that takes this stuff – wine – very seriously, because I am totally digging this mag. right now.

The background: A few weeks ago, I published a short article on wine mag. recommendations. Phil Vogels, Business Manager for the magazine Sommelier Journal, contacted me after he read that post, because he thought I might be interested in what SJ had to offer. After a bit of e-mail conversation, Phil sent me a few issues to glance through – no strings attached, of course… I wouldn’t want to offend any long-standing wine industry types (cough… steveheimoff… cough… tomwark… COUGH!) by violating any of ye olde silent and unwritten sacred oaths of journalistic integrity, for sooth I forswear, etc., etc., etc.

I asked Phil about SJ magazine’s backstory. “Our background is interesting. Our company has published a monthly Orthodontic journal for 40 years now, the Journal of Clinical Orthodontics, which was begun by an orthodontist with a journalism background.”

Uh… orthodontics? What?!!?? Braces don’t exactly strike me as interesting… NOT off to a good start….

“Our Editor has been the Managing Editor for many years of JCO, and started to get more and more into wine starting around ten years ago. In 2006 he took one of the intensive courses at the CIA in Napa, and while he was there, he realized that there are lot of people in the business who are very serious about their education. So he asked around and also realized that there was not a publication in this niche.”

Also not good. I didn’t have high hopes. Anyway, I’ve since devoured several issues of Sommelier Journal and as far as I’m concerned, I was way wrong on my initial assessment – SJ kicks the crap out many of the established, stodgy, dinasour wine mags. with snarky and negative senior editorial staff (cough… winespectator… cough… jamessuckling… COUGH!).

If it sounds like I have an agenda, it’s because I do. Personally, I think that subscribing to mags. like Wine Spectator, and then following their wine ratings religiously, for most wine lovers is a total waste of time and money. In fact, in my personal experience, giving too much weight to wine ratings and accepting the view that wine is a snobbish pursuit will set your wine learning back years. Wine was not meant to be rated to the point it is now – it’s approachable and is meant to be enjoyed.

Which is why I dig SJ – they actually write about wine. They assume a high level of wine knowledge, but in their accessible writing tone they absolutely do not care HOW you got that knowledge. Make no mistake, this is a trade mag. BUT… I think serious wine geeks who are NOT in the wine trade would also dig SJ. Why? Because the topics they cover simply ROCK – take for example, their series on wine faults. I love that kind of stuff, because I’m a total wine geek.

The best part is their view on ratings. This is how Phil put it: “We do not do ratings, as our research showed that they were not of interest to our core audience. However, I think many serious consumers also aren’t as interested in ratings, the in-depth tasting notes we provide give a good sense of the wine without attaching a numerical value to it. We take this seriously enough to deliberately obfuscate the one place in the magazine where wines are scored, the tasting panel, where our Snapshot graph is designed to give the group consensus on the wines without giving you numerical rankings. So we don’t do a large section in the back of the issue every month where we give a rundown of wines we have tasted, all of the notes are integrated into the articles, except for the Editorial Board Hot Picks which appear in the Notebook section each month.”

Amen, brother!

Are the reviews perfect? Of course not – especially when they get into “round table” tasting notes mode, where the uber-palated MWs wax philosophic about the wines they’re sipping. For me, if I’m not there participating, this puts me quickly into sleep mode (at some point, reading about wine tasting feels like learning how to french kiss by studying a diagram). I will give them recovery points for the tasting summaries of the wines, however, since these quickly capture the salient points without being dull. You won’t find any winery advertising in the mag (not yet anyway), and it hope it stays that way because it suggests a high credibility level in their reviews.

I also dig the creds. for their editorial board (imagine that… a wine mag. with actual Master Sommeliers and Masters of Wine on the editorial staff… why other mags. don’t do more of this I will never understand…), except for that slacker Alder Yarrow, who doesn’t have any official creds – apart from founding wine blogging in the first place! (Just kidding, Alder… who loves ya, babe!).

“A major advantage of our magazine is that it is heavily freelance based, which allows to use a variety of different writers,” adds Phil. “Our perspective is also a little different than the other wine magazines in what we try to communicate about the wines we cover. Since we are a trade magazine for the restaurant industry we take a more food oriented approach, frequently trying to communicate what the wine will be like with food and what foods it can pair with in our notes.”

With their board, you’d expect the focus to be squarely on wine, and you’d be right. “Our in-house editorial team is composed of journalists who know how to write and how to edit. This background gives us the flexibility to bring in the perspectives of non-professional writers who still have important things to contribute without sacrificing the quality of the publication. Unlike Wine Spectator, we don’t do lifestyle stories, so no travelogues, cooking advice, resort guides or car advertisements… no gimmicks, no content designed to widen our advertising base, just wine and industry knowledge and opinions,” says Phil.

Amen, squared!

Speaking of Wine Spectator, I asked Phil if he thought that, given their recent restaurant awards scandal, SJ was poised to kick WS in the jimmy, give it a wedge, and steal its lunch money & markey share (OK, maybe I didn’t use those exact words).

“We know that the restaurant awards program is designed to further the appreciation of wine in restaurants across the country, a goal with which we are happy to see someone attempting to achieve. Anything Wine Spectator can do to make their program the best it can be can only be beneficial to the restaurant wine community as a whole and we wish them continued success as they tweak their program in the future.“

I’ll take that as a “Yes“!

Cheers!
(images: sommelierjournal.com, galleryone.com)