Can You Name the Aromas of Fermentation?

Winemaking is not about grapes.

I will pause now, while winemakers all over the world scream.

Do you want to know why winemaking is not about grapes? Sure, you do.

It’s because vineyard management is about grapes. Vineyard managers spend their whole life learning about grapes, nursing grapes, talking to grapes.

Winemaking is about making choices once they have the grapes.

Some winemakers have influence over the vineyard manager about things like pruning or yields or whatever. But, the vineyard manager grows the grapes and gets them ripe for harvest—OK, well no one can order the grapes to ripen, that’s God’s work.

But, the vineyard manager cultivates the grapes and gives them the best possible situation to ripen.

Winemaking is a whole different set of very specialized skills. Decisions about fermentation, how to handle the grapes once they are in the winery, whether to barrel age and how long, what kind of barrels to use, adjusting acid levels—those kinds of things—are all choices, just like the choices every artist makes.

When I was a young man —back before there was electricity— I studied acting with Lee Strasberg in New York City. He had lots of famous students. I was not one of them.

But, of the untold number of things I learned from him, the most important one was that a great actor is not about emotions. Emotions matter, but a great actor is about choices. An actor chooses to threaten, or seduce or annoy, regardless of what the words say.

In the annals of actual world history, Brutus is the most famous of the assassins who murdered Julius Caesar on the Ides of March way back in ancient Rome.

In different productions of Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, I’ve seen Brutus played in different ways by different actors (Charleton Heston played him in the old movie pretty much no one remembers anymore.)

I’ve seen two different good actors play Brutus in one production as a sniveling weakling, afraid of everything (especially Caesar) and, in another equally good production, as a brutal, fearless Warrior, stabbing Caesar viciously without a single thought.

Both actors said exactly the same words to exactly the same characters in the play, but their choices changed the whole meaning of the play. The actors playing Caesar had to alter the way they played Caesar in response to the way Brutus was played.

In one, he was vicious and threatening (to accommodate the weakling Brutus), in the other old and fat (to contrast with the warrior Brutus.)

When you see the performance done well, it looks like that’s the only choice that the actor could have made. But, it’s not.

Give the same script to three different actors and you’ll get three different characters, even though they are saying the same words. They can sometimes be totally opposite, depending on the actor’s choices.

In the same way, give three winemakers the same batch of grapes and you’ll get three different wine characters—i.e., “styles,” Sometimes they, too, are opposite of each other.

As a simplified example, Sauvignon Blanc grapes from the same batch, can be:

(1) aged in barrels to emphasize oak aromas like vanilla or pencil.

(2) kept out of barrels and adjusted for high acidity in search of simplicity, cleanness, and crispness without the complexity.

(3) put through malolactic fermentation ( in the barrel) to make them creamier.

(4) made heavy and sweet like dessert wine (usually blended with Semillion like Chateau D’ Yquem.)

All valid choices. All very different results.

Different personalities in winemakers make different personalities in wines.

Malolactic Fermentation

I had a very successful partner once who refused to hire winemakers to make his wine.

He hired chemists instead in order to save money. Chemists are way cheaper than winemakers, even though a winemaker has to be a chemist too. Winemakers have to be chemists but chemists don’t have to be winemakers.

Eventually those chemists destroyed the wine we were working on together and bankrupt the company.

The thing is, the chemists were scientists, not artists. They knew a lot about chemistry but nothing about wine.

Neither one is wrong. My ex-partner is very rich. But, his choices are different.

Malolactic fermentation is part of the art of being a winemaker—a winemaker’s choice. A chemist has no basis for choosing whether to use malolactic or not because either way, scientifically, it’s still wine. But, there can be radically different tastes based on their choice.

Going through malolactic generally results in lower overall acidity and a creaminess in the wine. Also, buttery if it’s white wine. That’s because malolactic produces diacetyl as a side effect. (Diacetyl is what makes butter taste like butter.)

Malolactic fermentation is not actually a fermentation, but it is always referred to as a “secondary fermentation”—even though it’s actually bacteria working on the wine after the initial fermentation.

Malolactic conversion will happen on its own in a lot of wines but for some styles winemakers choose to keep it from happening. Usually by chilling the wine below 68 degrees but also by using sulfur dioxide or pulling the wine out of the primary fermenter and putting in a different barrel or tank.

Bacteria in the wine produce flavors like butter, cream and yogurt

https://www.guildsomm.com/public_content/features/articles/b/jamie_goode/posts/the-history-and-science-of-malolactic-fermentation

Wine writers nod wisely and talk about a wine’s “acidity” as if it were a single acid. In reality, there are several acids in wine and they may or may not go through conversions during the winemaking process.

Malolactic fermentation is the conversion of malic acid (the stuff that makes a green apple taste green) into lactic acid (the stuff that ruined my track career—it’s what builds up in your muscles and makes you tired when you exercise.)

The process lowers overall acidity so whether you do it or not depends on what aromas and tastes you want from the wine—-and how much acidity it has before you mess with it.

And, even though you didn’t ask, I’ll tell you something you can use at those pesky cocktail parties. Malolactic is usually talked about with white wines. But, red wines undergo malolactic too if the winemaker chooses.

Instead of making the wine taste like butter, it makes red wines fruitier with more berry tastes. So, if you are going to do party tricks, you’ll have to learn the specific tastes of both.

Malolactic fermentation in oak barrels makes Chardonnay taste buttery

THE AROMAS OF MALOLACTIC FERMENTATION

Remember, that if you want to train your palate, you have to take the descriptor—butter for instance— and smell real butter first (margarine won’t work). Then, smell the wine and go back and forth until your mind learns to name that smell in the wine as “buttery.”

Butter

Chardonnays aged in oak almost always will have a buttery aroma because of bacteria in the oak, so that’s a good place to start. There are Chardonnays made in stainless steel tanks (instead of aged in oak) that go for a crisper, more acidic taste and they normally won’t have the butter taste, although it can be induced by the winemaker adding bacteria.

Cream

Sometimes that same diacetyl from the malolactic fermentation will produce a smell like sweet cream. It’s probably more subtle so you’ll need to separate the two smells in your mind and practice both.

Other common aromas from malolactic fermentation include:

Butterscotch

Caramel

Vanilla

Nutty

BAD TASTES

Rancid butter

This one’s pretty obvious. Malolactic gone wrong or other bacteria can make the butter smell rancid. If you smell rancid butter, that’s a winemaking mistake.

Fetid milk/Cheese

Lactic acid produced during fermentation can be faintly detected as a spoiled milk or cheese smell if the acid level gets out of balance. Another winemaking mistake.

CHOICES

Music, painting, dance, sculpture, theatre—all the arts are about making choices. I’m ignoring Free Will because, you know, this is about wine, not philosophy. But, the point that is relevant here is that in many ways, choice is life.

And, choice is certainly fundamental to great wines.

Winemaking choices make or break a wine. There are no absolute certainties. Wine is a living thing, constantly changing and reacting to its surroundings.

The choice you make when you are bottling in March in California may not work 3,000 miles away 6 months from now in September. So, just remember that wine is not Coca Cola.

Not only are the choices different with each winemaker, but the wine itself ages differently depending on which choices were made.

And, isn’t that wonderful?