The <i> Brett </i> Pack

One of the most widely acclaimed wines in the world is Chateau Margaux. Some people feel the 1989 vintage of this Bordeaux, which sells for roughly $100 a bottle, is about as good a wine as you can buy at any price.

Other people, including a number of Sonoma County winemakers, say the ’89 Margaux is undrinkable--infected by a yeast-generated smell that gives it a horsey, leathery, barnyard quality.

In this case, the “spoilage” in the 1989 Margaux, as well as in many other Bordeaux wines, is caused by a strain of yeasts called Brettanomyces --either lambicus , custersii or bruxelensis-- known simply as “brett” to those in the industry.

Brett has long been known as a “wild” yeast strain that is difficult to control and that ferments in a way different from the more common yeast Saccharomyces cereviseae . Brett can leave a wine with an odd aroma. Some people love this character, which they refer to as cedar-like, earthy or mushroom-y. Occasionally one hears the terms “meaty” and “gamey” in reference to it.

But there are those who don’t like the aroma, and I’m among them. I find that it leaves the wine with a dank, less-than-fruity aroma when young and sometimes a coarse, metallic aftertaste and a propensity to make the wine undrinkable when aged. I’m not alone; consider these descriptions of the brett aroma from other wine drinkers: “wet wool,” “sweaty horse blanket,” “mousey,” “wet dog,” “chicken droppings.” And worse.

At a recent blind tasting of 1989 Bordeaux, a group of Sonoma County winemakers found the aroma of brett in the aforementioned Margaux as well as in wines from Mouton, Pichon-Lalande and other top-rate chateaux.

Bordeaux is not alone in this. One California winemaker who makes Rhone-style wines tells me he has almost never had a clean bottle of the Rhone wine from Chateau Beaucastel, which gets rave reviews in some quarters. “It reeks,” he says.

Brettanomyces once was rare in California wines because winemakers fought its development by adding sulfur dioxide to wines and using prepared yeast strains rather than wild yeasts. They also filtered their wines before bottling.

But in recent times, at least two winemakers--in an effort to make more “complex” wines--have not been fighting the growth of Brettanomyces. In fact, they are actually encouraging it. Those winemakers, who acknowledge they allow brett to grow in their Cabernets, are Nick Goldschmidt at Simi Winery and David Ramey at Chalk Hill Winery, both in Sonoma County.

One wine that has a noticeable trace of brett aroma is 1990 Chalk Hill Cabernet Sauvignon ($18), a deep and concentrated wine with appeal. Some people like it a lot, but others are lukewarm because of the brett aroma. Another wine with a trace--but noticeable--amount of brett is the 1989 Robert Mondavi Cabernet. Industry sources say Mondavi’s winemakers have fought brett for more than 15 years, some years more successfully than others.

Simi’s Goldschmidt calls having brett aromas in a wine a style choice. “We’re looking for fruit first and then complexity,” he adds. “I don’t like high brett character; I don’t want to see it as a strong element.”

Zelma Long, president of Simi, says she has been fighting brett aromas for two decades, sometimes unsuccessfully, and the decision to allow the organism to grow early in the fermentation of some Simi wines is simply to learn how to control it.

Ramey says he feels the use of wild yeasts (instead of prepared yeasts) makes for more complex, deeply flavored wine and he isn’t opposed to having a trace of the aroma in his wine. “We don’t encourage (brett) or discourage it. It’s simply a part of the wild yeast and we’re dealing with it in the winery.”

To academics such as Roger Bolton, a professor in the Department of Enology at UC Davis, brett is just plain spoilage.

“Any time there is a microbial trace that is unintentional and not deliberately pursued, it is spoilage,” says Bolton. “The same goes for volatile acidity (a vinegary smell), diacetyl (butteriness), and other wild yeast flora that are not Brettanomyces. “

Ken Fugelsang, a professor at Fresno State University, recently concluded six years of research into brett and an associated ailment called Dekkera intermedia. He describes wines intentionally made at Fresno with Brettanomyces under controlled conditions as “defective when they were young and over the long term questionable.” He says his findings (a comprehensive review will be published soon by the American Chemical Society) conclude that brett is best avoided.

“We are advising people to proceed with extraordinary caution because there are several strains of Brettanomyces in the wild,” says Fugelsang. “Some may add complexity, but others are clearly spoilage.

“In the short term, shortly after fermentation, the wines may be more complex, but after that period, when the new wine shows aging properties, the wine deteriorates quickly, and one gets all of the negative descriptors one associates with Brettanomyces. “

Moreover, it develops erratically, he says: “Just upon standing, it goes from a wine that isn’t objectionable to all of the negative aromas in a short period of time. We think it’s foolhardy to play with it without knowing precisely what you’re going to get.”

But what of all those highly praised, highly priced, brett-infected Bordeaux?

“We (at UC Davis) don’t praise Bordeaux,” says Bolton. “We’re far ahead of the University of Bordeaux in many respects. They have history and tradition, but part of that tradition is natural flora, which we call microbial spoilage.”

Bolton says the problem with brett is that it comes and goes. He says he opposes winemaking in which the brett appears in some vintages of a property’s wine and not in other vintages from the same property. “Are these people (French winemakers) in control of the winemaking process or aren’t they?” he asks.

“As a consumer, you want to know what sort of wine you’re going to get,” he says. “We don’t think they know what they’re doing. They cannot reproduce it from year to year, yet they will defend a wine that has it. But they won’t then realize the next year, when they don’t have it, why they don’t have it.”

As for those California winemakers who encourage the brett aroma to develop, Bolton says: “They may encourage it, but it is by no means guaranteed that the aroma will develop. You may not even get the bug to grow and if you do, you may not even get the aroma that we call brett.”

The main problem for wine drinkers is that some wines with a high brett yeast infection don’t develop the brett aroma at all, and some that have only a tiny amount of the brett yeast develop a raging brett smell. Moreover, not every bottle of the same wine develops the same level of brett aroma.

Some wine critics like this aroma, which they say can be intriguing when found in small amounts. Often they will praise a wine as having a “trace” of gaminess when others find the level massive.

Ronn Wiegand, a master of wine, master sommelier and publisher of the “Restaurant Wine” newsletter, says he feels it is unconscionable for a winemaker to encourage the aroma of brett in a wine.

“A lot of people feel having brett in a wine will give them good acceptance by several (wine) critics. And it’s also part of this back-to-nature movement, treating wine as little as possible. They feel that it’s present in European wines so let’s not fight it.

“I know some people actually like it because it gives some complexity to a wine early in its life. But when it’s obvious, it’s an objectionable flaw.”

One winemaker was shocked anyone would want the aroma. “I think it’s irresponsible to release a wine that is a work in progress,” he says. “If the wine has no brett aroma before it leaves the winery, it still could develop in the bottle. I feel that whatever happens to a wine should happen before it is released.”

Another winemaker, also seeking anonymity, says of Ramey and Goldschmidt: “Both of those guys are going to get their noses a little bloodied from this brett work they’re doing, but we’re all going to benefit from what they learn. The great thing is that when they learn something, they’ll tell the rest of the industry.”

Wine of the Week

1992 Smith-Madrone Vineyards Riesling ($9)-- While most people don’t think of matching off-dry wines with food, this slightly sweet Riesling is a perfect foil for spicy Thai, Indian or Sichuan food. Made by Stu and Charlie Smith, it is also a simply delicious sipping wine for picnics or before dinner. The aroma is of apricots, peaches and honeysuckle and the taste is lush and gentle.

The grapes for this wine were grown in the newly approved Spring Mountain District appelation, at the 1,800-foot peak of Spring Mountain overlooking the Napa Valley. The Smith brothers chose to plant Riesling here in the mid-’70s because the adjoining vineyard, on a lower portion of the steeply sloped hillside, is owned by Stony Hill, which has made stylish (though drier) Riesling from similar soils and sun exposures since its founding in the early 1950s.