Mark Lipton wrote:Thomas wrote:Mark Lipton wrote:My label example was to illustrate my position that a wine is flawed when it is not what it promises to be. When a winery tells me that the wine is supposed to smell like horseshit because the winery specifically wanted that special little yeast to take over, then I will accept that that particular strain of Brett in that individual wine is not a flaw. Same with excessive v.a., reduction, and a variety of other things that most winemakers don't set out to achieve in their products.
But wines are quite often not what they promise to be. Duboeuf's Bojos for many years smelled strongly of isoamyl acetate (bananas) and how about all those CalChards that smell of diacetyl (butter)? Those things have nothing to do with fruit, are not in any way indicated on the label, yet emerge from conscious decisions made by winemakers. So, are they faulty wines or not? If not, then is the small vigneron who doesn't scrupulously disinfect his old barrels because he likes the low-level Brett taint in his wines making faulty wines or not? From my perspective, I'd gladly drink his wines over any butterbomb Chard or TootyFrooty Bojopiffle. It's not that I disagree with your view of faults in wines, but I'm trying to establish in my own mind a defensible definition of the term.
Mark Lipton
Of course, Mark, the diacetyl and even the i. acetate are there because of winemaking decisions that lead directly to them; ML and carbonic maceration. The promise of what the wine will be like is in the method, and in each of these two cases, the winemaker exerted control over the process and that's what the end result reflects. To me, the wine may be the result of faulty thinking, but those individual traits do not necessarily make for a faulty wine.
On the other hand, if diacetyl (plus some contained CO2 and maybe even cabbage) are the result of an in-the-bottle ML, the wine is faulty no matter what the intentions: you don't do ML in the bottle, and because the wine did, it is not what the winemaker intended it to be.
On the other, other hand, technically, carbonic maceration alters fruit and wine to such a degree that if it were done on, say, Merlot or Riesling, one might reasonably consider what comes out of the bottle a fault, based solely on what we've been led to know about and expect from Merlot and Riesling wines. That would be winemaking going up against an established or agreed upon standard, and in a blind evaluation, the wine would not smell like the class and variety that it is assigned in the flight--probably most judges would consider the wine flawed.
And on all the other hands, many people like faults in wines, not because they believe the wines are faulty, but because, well, I don't know why, except to say they prefer those wines. Often, however, in a blind tasting, many people find that they prefer over their beloved wines those that don't display those faults. I've always wondered why that is so?