lifestyle //GOMmelier

The Underworld
of Legendary Wines
Rotten grapes, mouthwatering fungal funk, barnyard
stench, snow jobs and respectable shrinkage.
r
By Keith B. Hoffman

S
eventy-eight thousand pounds for
a single bottle of white wine is not
unheard of, while £784,000 was spent
on a collection of sweet wines from the famous
Château d’Yquem in Bordeaux that included a
bottle from every successful vintage from 1860-
2003. Would you be even more astonished to
know that these treasured liquids were produced
entirely from grapes that were infected and
rotting with fungus right up until the time when
they were harvested?
Botrytis cinerea (Botrytis) is affectionately
known to makers of sweet wine as ‘Noble Rot’.
Botrytis is a fungus that eats its way below
the skin of the grapes, piercing and sucking
on the grapes internal pith. No doubt proper
magnification would reveal some horrible
penetration into that vulnerable grape meat.
After the rot has had its way, the grapes look like
deflated, sickly balloons. The bunches resemble
a mouldy-looking blob from the underpaid
effects of some crappy 1970s science fiction
movie. These visual disasters, however, provide
a hidden blessing for the maker of sweet wines.
Such fungal parties end up leeching out so
much moisture from the grapes that they can be
thought of as biological dehydration machines.

È In the Graves region of the Bordeaux vineyards, Château d’Yquem is a symbol of something truly sublime evolving from something truly rotten.

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 GOMmelier // lifestyle

know your... dessert

wine applications
There are a couple of
other main ways sweet
wines are produced,
and chief among these
are ‘late’ harvesting
techniques, which
allow the grapes a slow
death on the vine. As
water leaves the grapes,
their sugar and solids
content rises. The Italians achieve a similar
end by causing their sweet wine grapes to
dehydrate after they’re harvested.
Famous sweet wines and regions also
include the Rheingau in Germany, Chile,
South Africa and Australia.
From fungal rot to the face of a movie
star near you—Christian Dior and Château
È A meanderer’s guide to Hungary’s Tokaj region where some of the best sauternes are made. d’Yquem have joined forces to create an
anti-aging balm. Molecules found in the vine
The remaining grape ghosts are rich in sugars and unsuitable grapes, and it’s hard to imagine their shoots are said to form the active ingredient
dissolved compounds. In other words, humans intentions were pure. In the case of fungus-laden in the cream. Science guys
now consider what the lowly fungus disregards as grapes, such hucksters blatantly ignored every and machines are apparently
pure winemaking gold. The most famous dessert evolutionary and gustatory alarm bell that went hard at work extracting
wines in the world—Aszu from Tokaj-Hegyalja off in his or her head. No doubt they hoped to selected antioxidant and
in Hungary, and Sauternes from Bordeaux, mix the resultant tarn in with ‘real’ wines, or sell rejuvenation compounds
France—are made from this exact rotten opus. it all off to some unsuspecting consumer. Such from the sap. L’Or de Vie La
How did all this start? Similar to the ice evil plans were instantly forgotten after those first Crème (£195 for 1.7 oz), and
wine story further on, someone, somewhere went historic, delicious sips. It seems that wine’s L’Or de Vie L’Extrait (£175-
ahead and tried to produce wine from clearly earliest crimes did indeed pay. £215 for 1 oz). With that,
your GOMmelier is forced to
recommend that they send
me some free samples for
the lady in my life, so that
future articles may explore
the scientific value of such
grapey balms.

È They call it liquid gold for a reason. Each sip can resonate incredible complexity for over half an hour. È The finest name in Hungarian sweet wines.

GAMBLINGONLINEMAG.CO.UK 63
lifestyle //GOMmelier
Ice Wine (Eisewein)
In 1794, near Wurzburg in Northern Bavaria,
a winemaker awoke to what he thought was his
worst nightmare. The man despondently squinted
at a horizon of white death—he was caught by an
unexpected overnight frost. As he poured some
schnapps into his morning coffee, a waft of steam
and alcohol preyed on his weary eyes. His grapes
that had been painstakingly tended for so many
months were now suspended in time and ice.
The winemaker was stunned, his only source of
income completely decimated. He could not help
but envision the fields before him as his own flat
and empty wallet. Perhaps it was more schnapps,
perhaps true desperation, but later that morning
his eyes flickered clear, and what he did next
changed the way wine was made forever.
Heretofore, the crop would have been termed
a loss, and the vintage scrapped. Yet, instead of
giving up, he mustered his harvestmen and set out
to collect the frozen grape balls and proceed with
normal winemaking. Then, as now, the work was
tedious—bitterly cold, and the presses and other
machinery designed for room temperature grape
mashing were now expected to handle frozen,
hard chunks of ice. The winemakers doubted
themselves at every process, and almost gave up
numerous times. Nothing was known until much
later, when Mr Frugal had his first taste, and it was
an encounter that stunned him. Magnificent, rich
and altogether new flavours had materialised out
of the white abyss. The eisewein had cometh.
The deep sweetness and new flavours are
thought to come from lowered water content and
the action of ice crystals puncturing the grape
skins. The icy lacerations produce vigorous flavour
extractions, and the water loss simply results in a
È Sweet on the vine, but even sweeter after decaying and the meticulous process of becoming a sauterne.
64 GAMBLINGONLINEMAG.CO.UK
È Near Wurzburg over 200 years ago, winemakers finally found a way to embrace the cold.
higher sugar and dissolved-solids content in the
fermentable juice. Interestingly then, one man’s
simple desperation to salvage his grapes may have
directly lead to an entire modern-day industry of
sweet and dessert wines. Next time you order an
extremely pricy ice wine, take a minute to ponder
its frugal start.
Brettanomyces
Even those of us who live in cities seem to
instinctively know what the aroma descriptor
‘barnyard’ is meant to convey, and unfortunately
even easier to relate to is ‘dirty gym socks’, ‘wet
bandages’, and/or aged cow excrement. Such
bouquets, at first pass, might seem like ones to
avoid in a wine, especially since they result from
a very common infection of wild yeast called
Brettanomyces bruxellensis (‘Brett’). Some of the
world’s best wines are infected, and yet many
wine aficionados and wannabe connoisseurs,
including me, welcome a low level of these ‘animal
shed’ smells. In addition to animalistic overtones,
Brett can sometimes add leather and spice to
wine-tasting notes.
Brett’s survival skills and panache to live
undetected in winery pipes, barrels and racks
are what make it a quandary for winemakers
everywhere. The yeast used the world over for
turning sugars into alcohol is Saccharomyces
cerevisiae (‘Sacch’), and it, like Brett, can survive
in the hostile environment of high alcohol levels.
All grapes have naturally occurring yeasts in
them. In fact, yeasts are so plentiful that with
the next breath you take, you will scoff down
a menagerie of wild yeasts that are constantly
wafting though the skies and your nose pipes.
These wild yeasts contribute to the early stages
of fermentation, but most of them will die off
as alcohol concentrations rise. Only Sacch and
Brett can survive.
The tastes of Brett noted above occur if
there is too much sugar left around, and Brett
out-competes Sacch. This precarious contest is
occurring wherever there is winemaking, and
it has adversely affected even the most vaunted
wineries. A favorite pastime of winemakers is
to have endless debates regarding Brett and his
lingering stenches. As with political affiliations,
bias and one-dimensional opinions rule the day.
I’d suggest that if you are a staunch Brett hater,
give him another chance. However, anytime
he has taken over a given wine such that the
endemic flavour profiles are pushed aside by his
damp fur, then go ahead and avidly kick him
to the curb.
As a learned reader, you know that yeasts
consume sugar and excrete out a liquid scat that
you cherish, known as alcohol. One would not be
dim to assume that different yeasts, being a rather
homogenous lot, would function and produce the
same end result in winemaking. Not so says Brett,
and he thereby shows us all yet another kink in
the convolutional art of wine creation.