The Wine Blokes

Have you ever had a wine that smells distinctly like a horse stable or similar to a “band-aid”.  In a wine, it’s not such a desirable quality.  Even some themselves may like to think so, winemakers are not god, and at times they make mistakes, or have problems that are unavoidable.

Much has been written about the dreaded brettanomyces spoliage yeast.  It now is in the forefront of so many winemakers and wine indusrty pros that if a wine seems odd, but the taster cannot determine what it is, they will almost always spruke that it must be brettanomyces, or “Brett”.  

I’m not going to re-hash all the literature on Brett, suffice to say that it can be avoided if proper precautions are taken.

However I was interested today to discover a new, simple, cheap, test for Brett in the winery that has been developed between the University of Porto and Intelli’oeno (a French consulting company). Basically the test, called “Sniff’ Brett“, involves adding wine to a growth media in a small vial. If the vial has a distinct brett smell after a pre-determined number of days, it allows the winemakers to estimate the contamination level without the requirements of advanced microbiological knowledge or facilities.

Sounds simple, but my experience today convinces me that it works, and it is so simple and cheap.  With the advent of new technology such as this, there is really no reason that “Brett” contaminated wines be released onto the market, unless intentionally, or by a lazy winemaker.