I am just starting to really get into wine. I'm learning appellations,
varietals, lingo... I'm starting to be able to discern different flavors,
etc..

yesterday at a restaraunt I ordered a South African pinotage, a varietal I
wasn't previously aware of. when i tasted it, I noticed the distict smell
of roquefort cheese, but other than that, the wine tasted fine. As I had
more, I worried that the wine might be bad, and that the smell was fungus or
bacteria.

What was that smell? Is it a common scent for wines of this varietal?
Should I have sent it back?

--

- Jonathan

August 1, 2005 -- My self-produced self-performed CD is almost done!
Send me your mailing addresses for a FREE CD! No strings attached, even
shipping is on me.
Go to www.guestroomproject.com and click on CONTACT ME.

If I understand correctly, what you detected -- sometimes described as
"barnyard" -- might have been caused by Brettanomyces, a common wild
yeast that affects most wine to some degree. Some people consider that
a certain amount of Brett adds character to the wine, and people have
different sensitivities to it as well. Some hate it. In any case, Brett
is not harmful. If there was also an excess of diacetyl -- a by-product
of incomplete fermentation -- the combination of diacetyl's
buttery/cheesy smell and Brett could cause something like a moldy
cheese smell, I suppose. This is not harmful either. Others may have
better suggestions.

Andy

From http://www.wine-pages.com/guests/tom/taste5.htm#horse

STILTON
Stilton (F) Stilton (G) Stilton (I) Stilton (S)
Not as rare as you might think, all the compounds below are found in
wine and also happen to be the most important contributors to the
aroma and flavour of blue cheeses.
Diacetyl, 2-methylpropanal, 3-methylbutanal, ethyl butanoate, ethyl
hexanoate, methional, dimethyl trisulphide, Heptan-2-one, 2-nonanone
--
Steve Slatcher
http://pobox.com/~steve.slatcher

£ Î Z @ R Ð wrote:
> I am just starting to really get into wine. I'm learning appellations,
> varietals, lingo... I'm starting to be able to discern different flavors,
> etc..
>
> yesterday at a restaraunt I ordered a South African pinotage, a varietal I
> wasn't previously aware of. when i tasted it, I noticed the distict smell
> of roquefort cheese, but other than that, the wine tasted fine. As I had
> more, I worried that the wine might be bad, and that the smell was fungus or
> bacteria.
>
> What was that smell? Is it a common scent for wines of this varietal?
> Should I have sent it back?
>

First of all, don't worry about this from a health standpoint: wine is a
very inhospitable environment for pathogens, so it's safe to drink in
almost all cases. I have a different interpretation of what you were
smelling from the other responders. "Cork taint" is a (regrettably)
common flaw in wines placed in cork-sealed bottles. Industry estimates
range from 5-15% of all cork-finished wine may be tainted. It is caused
by contamination with a chemical (TCA) that some people can smell at
very, very low levels. I am one of those people, and I can't eat bleu
cheeses because their taste and smell remind me too much of cork taint
(and, incidentally, mildew). So, I would suggest that you may have
encountered a "corked" bottle of Pinotage and be one of those people who
can sense cork taint quite acutely. If so, my commiseration.

Mark Lipton

On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 15:47:59 -0500, Mark Lipton >
wrote:

> I would suggest that you may have
>encountered a "corked" bottle of Pinotage and be one of those people who
>can sense cork taint quite acutely. If so, my commiseration.

I was wondering myself if it might not be TCA. Then I found the more
positive reference to blue cheese odours in wine so I guess it is
difficult to say without actually smelling it yourself.
--
Steve Slatcher
http://pobox.com/~steve.slatcher

I agree that cork taint is a possibility. If so, there is a positive
side. That is, it is less likely that other bottles of the same wine
will have the same unpleasent smell if it is corked than if there is
some other flaw, since most other faults develop during the
vinification process, and therefore may affect a whole
barrel/tank/batch. Of course, it is possible that many bottles of that
wine are corked, but it is also possible that only a few were affected.

By the way, it is considered permissible for Jonathon to return the
corked bottle (if that's what it is) to the merchant for a refund, is
it not?

Andy

> very, very low levels. I am one of those people, and I can't eat bleu
> cheeses because their taste and smell remind me too much of cork taint
> (and, incidentally, mildew). So, I would suggest that you may have
> encountered a "corked" bottle of Pinotage and be one of those people who
> can sense cork taint quite acutely. If so, my commiseration.

Thanks for your assessment. The interesting thing was that, besides the
strange roquefort smell, the wine was quite good. And I'd go so far as to
say that if I liked Roquefort, I would enjoy this wine. That is to say,
this bottle didn't taste like it had gone "bad."

It was just a little bizarre.

It reminds me of a bottle I had a while back, a Bully Hill (NY) Baco Noir.
It had the immediate smell of ketchup/barbeque sauce. As bad as that may
sound, I thought the bottle was wonderful!

I haven't ever encountered "corked" wine though I read about it often.

--

- Jonathan

August 1, 2005 -- My self-produced self-performed CD is almost done!
Send me your mailing addresses for a FREE CD! No strings attached, even
shipping is on me.
Go to www.guestroomproject.com and click on CONTACT ME.


"Mark Lipton" > wrote in message
...
>£ Î Z @ R Ð wrote:
>> I am just starting to really get into wine. I'm learning appellations,
>> varietals, lingo... I'm starting to be able to discern different flavors,
>> etc..
>>
>> yesterday at a restaraunt I ordered a South African pinotage, a varietal
>> I wasn't previously aware of. when i tasted it, I noticed the distict
>> smell of roquefort cheese, but other than that, the wine tasted fine. As
>> I had more, I worried that the wine might be bad, and that the smell was
>> fungus or bacteria.
>>
>> What was that smell? Is it a common scent for wines of this varietal?
>> Should I have sent it back?
>>
>
> First of all, don't worry about this from a health standpoint: wine is a
> very inhospitable environment for pathogens, so it's safe to drink in
> almost all cases. I have a different interpretation of what you were
> smelling from the other responders. "Cork taint" is a (regrettably)
> common flaw in wines placed in cork-sealed bottles. Industry estimates
> range from 5-15% of all cork-finished wine may be tainted. It is caused
> by contamination with a chemical (TCA) that some people can smell at very,
> very low levels. I am one of those people, and I can't eat bleu cheeses
> because their taste and smell remind me too much of cork taint (and,
> incidentally, mildew). So, I would suggest that you may have encountered
> a "corked" bottle of Pinotage and be one of those people who can sense
> cork taint quite acutely. If so, my commiseration.
>
> Mark Lipton

"£ Î Z @ R Ð" > wrote in
:



>
> I haven't ever encountered "corked" wine though I read about it often.
>

I dare say that you have and didn't know it. I know that I had not known
what "corked" meant for some time, but upon discovering it as in, "this is
corked wine" I realized that I had tasted it several times.

--
Joseph Coulter
Cruises and Vacations
http://www.josephcoulter.com/

In ,
£ Î Z @ R Ð > typed:

> I haven't ever encountered "corked" wine though I read about it
> often.


Jonathan, may I suggest that if you drink wine even fairly often,
you almost certainly *have* encountered it. You just didn't
realize that it was corked. This such a prevalent problem that
the only people who haven't experienced it are those who don't
drink wine.


--
Ken Blake
Please reply to the newsgroup

> It reminds me of a bottle I had a while back, a Bully Hill (NY) Baco Noir.
> It had the immediate smell of ketchup/barbeque sauce. As bad as that may
> sound, I thought the bottle was wonderful!

.... and that reminds me of a bottle I sampled in Sonoma, which upon
tasting gave me an immediate impression of "pizza". I didn't buy it
because I don't eat much pizza at home any more (my wife used to make a
wondeful pizza) but it seemed the perfect wine for that.

and upthread, yes, it is acceptable to return a corked bottle. I only
did it once, but the merchant took it back with no problem whatsoever.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

AyTee wrote:
> By the way, it is considered permissible for Jonathon to return the
> corked bottle (if that's what it is) to the merchant for a refund, is
> it not?

Absolutely, Andy, provided that you have recently purchased the bottle.
Where life gets interesting is when you open a bottle that has sat in
your cellar for lo those 15 years only to find it irretrievably ruined
by TCA. Have you got proof of purchase after all that time? And, even
if you do, will the merchant honor that agreement? Dunno, but I may
have to try that some time just to find out...

Mark Lipton

jcoulter wrote:

> I dare say that you have and didn't know it. I know that I had not known
> what "corked" meant for some time, but upon discovering it as in, "this is
> corked wine" I realized that I had tasted it several times.

Yup, same here. I'd noticed from time to time since the late-'70s that
some wines I tasted had a moldy, mildewy character to them that reminded
me of the smell of barrel rooms at wineries. It wasn't until the early
'90s that I learned that that smell was what people called "cork taint."
What a revelation! I'd dismissed dozens of wines as bad that probably
were simply corked. Better late than never, I suppose...

Mark Lipton

"...for lo those 15 years only to find it irretrievably ruined
by TCA. Have you got proof of purchase after all that time? And, even

if you do, will the merchant honor that agreement?"

Right. And is the merchant still alive? ;-)