Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts

Tuesday's Washington Post had an interesting piece on Brettanomyces.

Give me a little "good Brett" any day.

Gruaud Larose
Gruaud Larose
Gruaud Larose
Gruaud Larose
Gruaud Larose

Yum. Me likey brett. Joguet. Talbot. Joguet. Gruard Larose. Joguet. Old Montrose. Joguet.

There is a trend in home brewing to create sour beers by adding Brettanomyces.
Not my style but a lot of folks are trying it.

There are certainly wines I love that have a "touch" of Brett, so I'm not in the "all Brett bad" camp.

There are certainly wines I hate that have either a "touch" of "bad" Brett (IIRC, there are several different strains of Brett) or simply too much Brett. Paul Hobbs Meritage (whatever it's called) comes to mind for me, with their weird vegetal-swamp-gas thing going on, but, even among my regular tasting group, it's a 50-50 love/hate thing, so different strokes.

There are certainly wines that have way more bottle variation than they should, probably due to Brett (yeah,I'm looking at you, 1989 Beaucastel).

There are certainly people who are much less sensitive to Brett than I am, and much more sensitive to Brett than I am, so I can't possibly speak for them.

So, I'm conflicted.

The thrust of the article was that there are more Brett strains and attendant byproducts than generally realized. And that some of them produce positive, non-barnyard or bandaid aromas. I'm ok even with a bit of the barnyard as seen in some of the wines mentioned above. Talbot, Gruaud and Beaucastel are favorites.

Of course a big problem with Brett is that it can continue to grow in the bottle, especially at higher storage temperatures. So you never know what you're going to get.