Brett: when sanitation meets wine style

Wines & Vines, Sept, 2004 by Tim Patterson

Leon Santoro, who made wine in Napa for years before moving to Orfila in San Diego County, says he was "more terrified about Brett early in my career, working with Cabernet--two years in the barrel, lots of old cooperage. I was more worried in the '80s and '90s than I am now. When I'm making a blend, I may go down a line of a hundred barrels, and as long as the 'Oops!' is just a hint, I may let it through. I try to get the wine below threshold--my nose--but I know it's there. I want fruit in my wines, sure, but that's not all there is to wine."

"I see a trend in winemaking now," says Bill Easton of Amador's Domaine de la Terre Rouge, "that's totally antiseptic. People want to have fruit-driven wines, flavored with oak, using barrels for softening. Maybe it's because of the younger drinkers flooding in, and they assume that $30 bottles taste just like the ones under $10, just more complex. I'm a more terroir-oriented winemaker, and I think Brett can play into that, but I don't like it out of balance. It's a component, like a lot of things are. The horsy aromas aren't so interesting, but the smokiness, the 4-EG, that can be. It all depends on the level."

If Brett has a homeland these days, it's not a country, but more a philosophical realm. "Natural" winemaking--sustainable, organic vineyard practices and noninterventionist cellar techniques--have an affinity for Brettanomyces, both because the winemakers can be on a quest for complexity and because a low-tech approach can set conditions for Brett to flourish. The juggling act can be demanding.

Jeff Virnig, winemaker for Robert Sinskey Vineyards in Napa, says that as their vineyards attained organic certification and they moved toward more natural yeast fermentations, Brett went up, at least in certain wines and vineyards. "We run 4-EG and 4-EP baselines," he says, "and monitor it carefully. If you let Brett take over the cellar, you change the wine. It's kind of like a caged tiger. Brett can add to mouthfeel, but if it gets to the point where the flavor profile is mostly that, it can negate terroir, the taste of the vineyard. We have it, but we don't want it as a predominant signature."

Once Brett (or the absence of Brett) becomes part of a particular wine's profile, year after year, an abrupt change can be disconcerting to consumers. Lisa Van de Water is currently working with one well-regarded New Zealand Pinot noir producer who has developed a case of Brett for the first time, and is "hoping customers will find the vintage variation interesting." Meanwhile, she also knows of a California winery whose reserve Cabernet has generally been Brett-y, but thanks to a new winemaker, the 2002 won't be--a situation in which solving a problem may create a problem.

Industry Acceptance Thresholds

One of the most intriguing portions of the ASEV symposium was a tasting of several Brett-influenced commercial wines. The wines themselves were interesting, in a Brett-y sort of way, but the reactions of the participants were even more revealing. The samples included a Chardonnay (a relatively rare example of a Brett-y white wine) which had most of its nose intact, but something noticeably odd going on in the mouth. Not a ruined wine, but not quite right, either. When session chair Linda Bisson asked whether people would go ahead and release the wine, half the hands in the room went up.