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 A & W FAMILY RESTAURANT
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Nosing Out Flaws
by Riley Krieger-Mercer <(Read Bio)
Corked, oxidized, volatile, and tainted - these are common descriptors used for a wine that is not as it should be. If a wine has these characteristics, it is, for lack of a better word, flawed. Although most of these faults will not actually hurt you, they are considered to be qualities that render the wine undrinkable.
How do you know if these qualities are in the bottle you have chosen? To begin, you have to know what you are looking for. You must know what one does not want the wine to taste like - you must nose out the flaw.
In restaurants, the time to do that is when the waiter pours you that first taste of the wine. This part of wine service is done to give you the opportunity to assess whether the wine is free of any contamination. When the waiter extracts the cork from the bottle, the instinct of many is to smell the cork. This is actually a big no-no! When you sniff away at a cork, tiny particles enter your olfactory gland, and will make you smell the cork aroma for the rest of the evening, rather than smelling the wine itself.
When the cork is extracted, examine it visually instead. Only one end of the cork should be stained with the wine. It is known as seepage when you can see a trail of wine leading all the way up the cork. You should also examine the cork for blue, moldy marks. This is a clue to nose the wine carefully. But first give the cork a good squeeze with your fingertips. A healthy cork will not be squishy or hard, but will be springy.
The next step is to look at the wine in your glass. Make sure it is free of any debris or haziness. Give the wine a swirl around the inside of your glass and smell deeply. Whatever you smell should be confirmed by your palette.
Although you might have a healthy springy cork, the wine can still be off. Classic cork taint is one of the most common flaws found in wine. It is scientifically known as trichloroanisole (TCA). Although TCA is most-commonly caused by the cork itself, it can also come from oak barrels and poor storage conditions.
Common descriptors for TCA are wet dog, moldy newspaper and damp cloth. TCA always reminds me of a musty basement, wet cardboard and old church bibles or library books. If you have smelled these aromas, then you know that they are not pleasant ones. TCA-inhibited wine will be muted of any fruit-driven qualities and is usually found in individual bottles, as opposed to whole batches of wine. So if you get a corked bottle, there is no need to change your choice in wine altogether. Have the waiter bring over another bottle of the same wine, and more often than not, you will notice a vast difference.
TCA is one of the biggest reasons that we are now seeing a lot of wine under stelvin closure (screw cap), and other sealing methods like Sinnean’s experiment with a glass cap and resin lining. Statistically, corks cause flaws in one of every 12 bottles. That is why the wine industry has sought more innovative methods for sealing bottles.
The second flaw to be weary of is oxidation. Wineries go to great lengths to make sure the wine is not exposed to too much air, for when it is, the wine can take on a horrible, gamy flavour. In red wines, it is hard to describe that aroma exactly, other than to say that it just smells horrid. In whites, the wine takes on sherry-like nuttiness and will be very bland otherwise. Both whites and reds will taste terribly unbalanced and bitter.
Visual signs of oxidation are seepage along the cork, and a definite discolouration or haziness to the wine. That being said, most oxidized wine is found in by-the-glass sections of restaurants or bottles that were opened last week and forgotten. Once a bottle of wine is opened, it is really a race against time to drink it before it turns. There are now many wine preservation systems on the market to combat oxidation, from the hand pump vacuum seal to state of the art machines that have CO2 injection to pressurize the inside of the bottle to create an oxygen-free environment. If none of these systems are used, then you really only have a couple of days after the bottle is open to use it.
Another major fault found in wine is called volatile acidity (VA). It occurs when wine literally turns into vinegar. VA can happen in the winery to a whole batch of wine, and it can also happen to individual bottles. It is the growth of acetic acid bacteria whose primary food source is alcohol. These bacteria need a lot of oxygen to thrive, so if a bottle is left open for a really long time, it develops VA.
VA smells like nail polish remover, paint thinner or vinegar. I am sure that you wouldn’t drink wine that smells like that anyway, but it is something to be wary of. That being said, there are some wines that have small amounts of VA that actually enhance the wine. For example, reds from Sicily often have a hint of this quality. It enhances the flavor by adding some acid to a wine that might otherwise be flabby in texture from a very warm climate.
The cousin to VA and oxidation is another flaw we know as matterisation. A wine that is described as matterised has often been stored somewhere really hot - matterised wine is really cooked wine. Matterisation can happen in the vineyard to the grapes before they are even picked and it can happen to the wine in an uncooled fermentation vat in a hot region. It can also happen to individual bottles. This means that if you don’t want matterised wine, maybe the furnace room, next to the hot water heater, or on the windowsill is not the best places to keep your wine. The same can be said about the wine rack on your counter next to the oven. A good rule of thumb to avoid matterised wine is to keep it out of the kitchen unless it is in a glass you are enjoying while cooking.
The last major fault in wine is known as brettanomyces. Brett, as it is commonly known, usually happens to a whole batch of wine. Brettanomyces is a strain of bacteria that makes the wine smell metallic and manure-like, although barnyard is the polite way of describing this. Sulfur is used in wineries to keep brett out. Once it has contaminated the wine, however, it is there to stay. Brett can come from the skins of the grapes themselves, and from winery contamination due to lack of a sterile environment. Barnyard was historically a common descriptor in red Burgundy pre-1970s until it was discovered that this quality came from unclean wine making equipment. As there are definitely shades of grey when it comes to brett, some traditionalist wine makers in Burgundy still allow small amounts of it in their wine to add to the overall complexity, like Louis Jadot’s 1999 Corton-Pougets Grand Cru. I have had countless Pinot Noir enthusiasts in the restaurant in which I work who have rejected this wine as off, but I find it completely delicious and just as it should be.
So remember, if you detect one of these flaws, try another bottle. Smell the wine, not the cork. If the wine doesn’t smell and taste good to you, then don’t force yourself to drink it. If you do, then your perception of the wine will definitely not be the delicious flavour the wine maker intended for you. If the second bottle smells the same, then try another wine.
Wine is something to be enjoyed and cherished to the last drop, but if it’s flawed, then down the sink or back to the store it must go. After all, it’s not romantic drinking a bottle filled with musty basement flavours, or leaving a nice dinner with a bad case of brett breath, now is it?
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