One bottle with brett, the rest okay?

[Jenise]

I'm helping a friend sell some wine, and one of the bottles I opened the other day for samples had just a touch of funk on the nose. I thought it would blow off (this was 100% syrah) and took it with me on my sales calls anyway. It didn't blow off, but fortunately neither did it get any worse. And I even sold more of it than the other two wines. When I got home I opened another bottle just to make sure I hadn't imagined that not being there in the dozen or so other bottles I've opened and confirmed I was right. The new bottle was clean.

So what causes a one-off with brett like that? Just a strange contaminant that got into the bottle? Something in the cork?

I'm helping a friend sell some wine, and one of the bottles I opened the other day for samples had just a touch of funk on the nose. I thought it would blow off (this was 100% syrah) and took it with me on my sales calls anyway. It didn't blow off, but fortunately neither did it get any worse. And I even sold more of it than the other two wines. When I got home I opened another bottle just to make sure I hadn't imagined that not being there in the dozen or so other bottles I've opened and confirmed I was right. The new bottle was clean.

So what causes a one-off with brett like that? Just a strange contaminant that got into the bottle? Something in the cork?

Jenise,
Even though both bottles are ostensibly the same wine, they don't necessarily come from the same barrels or even the same fermenter. Chances are that one or more barrels in the winemaking facility has a Brett infection and that the one tainted bottle came from it.

Mark Lipton

[Jenise]

I'm helping a friend sell some wine, and one of the bottles I opened the other day for samples had just a touch of funk on the nose. I thought it would blow off (this was 100% syrah) and took it with me on my sales calls anyway. It didn't blow off, but fortunately neither did it get any worse. And I even sold more of it than the other two wines. When I got home I opened another bottle just to make sure I hadn't imagined that not being there in the dozen or so other bottles I've opened and confirmed I was right. The new bottle was clean.

So what causes a one-off with brett like that? Just a strange contaminant that got into the bottle? Something in the cork?

Jenise,
Even though both bottles are ostensibly the same wine, they don't necessarily come from the same barrels or even the same fermenter. Chances are that one or more barrels in the winemaking facility has a Brett infection and that the one tainted bottle came from it.

Mark Lipton

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear. I know that both bottles came from the same barrel--we've only bottled one barrel so far. There's been no sign of brett in either of the other wines or any previous bottle of this syrah. So, next guess?

I'm sorry, I should have been more clear. I know that both bottles came from the same barrel--we've only bottled one barrel so far. There's been no sign of brett in either of the other wines or any previous bottle of this syrah. So, next guess?

Another possibility is that the one bottle that showed Bretty was stored at higher temperature than the others. If the Brettomyces is in the wine (as opposed to simply the 4-ethylphenol produced by Brett) then it'll reproduce more at higher temperature than it will at lower temps.

Mark Lipton

I think that Brettanomyces can live under both aerobic and anaerobic conditions. Therefore, being a living organism, it might have been in an extremely small, undetectable concentration at bottling and died off quickly in one bottle early for some reason but lived and reproduced longer in the other.

Jenise,

Do you happen to know how much free SO2 the wine contained at bottling? Was the wine sterile filtered?

Hi Jenise,
I agree with Mark and Covert. Barrels are deemed “sweet”, or “not sweet” or simply “healthy” or “unhealthy”. Basically if we were to sterilize the barrel to completely rid it of a “Brett infestation” say with steam as in one of those hospital sterilization machines, the barrel would most likely lose all its “integrity” and become unsuited to hold wine. So very likely like Mark and Covert suggested the Brett “colony” in that “one” bottle just found “the right” (high pH, low SO2, warm temperatures etc) conditions for that colony to become “alive” and active.

I have a question for Mark.
Could 4EP and 4EG molecules pass through a cork?

Salute

I have a question for Mark.
Could 4EP and 4EG molecules pass through a cork?

Cork permeability seems to be a contentious issue, Victor. Nowadays there seems to be a growing consensus that not even water can pass through a cork per se, only around it. On the basis of that, and nothing more, I'd say it's unlikely that either 4EP or 4EG could make it past a cork unless the seal's been compromised.

Mark Lipton

[Jenise]

Jenise,

Do you happen to know how much free SO2 the wine contained at bottling? Was the wine sterile filtered?

Don't know. I know the bottles were washed with a sulfite solution. And all the bottles I'm discussing having tasted were at the winery or transferred to my home at the same time in the same case and conditions.

Hi Mark,
Thanks a million for putting up with all my questions! Over the years I have “examined” the cross-sections of many corks. I have observed “veining” of the wine from the inside surface towards the outside. Not only on the corks outer surface (possible caused by a faulty jaw(s) (of the iris) or a plunger miss properly set) but also “inside” the cork itself. (For the most part the “veining” doesn’t reach the outside surface to cause “leakage” problems). But this “veining” from the inside towards the outside always got me thinking about “veining” from the outside towards the inside. (Surely an “environment” with high levels of (air-borne) TCA, 4EP or 4EG will “stink” and no one in their right mind will “store” or keep wine in such an “environment”). Being an amateur winemaker I deal with a lot of stoppers with S-airlocks, some of the time the solution in the air lock is at “level”, other times it “swings” either “inwards” or “outwards”. IMHO a sound and high quality “taint-free” cork (and how it “functions”, “performs” or “responds” to this) is responsible (or plays a role anyway) for allowing a wine to “age gracefully”.

Hi Jenise,
As for your “off” bottle, I don’t know if for a “modern” bottling line this is required (I’ve seen them take the corked and labeled wines right off the bottling line and place them “upside down” into case boxes) but being a home winemaker and corking the wines using a floor corker, usually I stand the bottles upright for 24 to 48 hours (sometimes a little longer) to give the corks time to “settle in” (really just to make sure none of the corks get “pushed out”) before laying them on their sides. Besides an adequate amount of time should be given so that a wine could “recover” from the bottling operation. (I would say at least a month, hopefully maybe even longer possibly 3 to 6 months).

Salute

I too have experience of different brett contamination levels from bottle to bottle of the same wine from the same source. Cork performance has always seemed to me the most likely cause of the differences because all the bottles in my cellar undergo the same heat variations. The other possibility is some event at bottling time affecting individual bottles.

No doubt Tim, temperature variation, expansion and contraction of the wine, the actual amount of “headspace” has a great deal to do with it. But also what the wine is actually “doing” (or what is actually taking place in the wine) at any given time also plays a role in determining which way the solution in the s airlock “swings”.

Salute

Bottle variation with regard to oxidation is normal when a wine has marginal free SO2, I'm not sure if the same is true of brett. Hence my question about free SO2.