Botrytis - Slightly like sweet corn? Curious, when you're drinking a botrytized wine what

are the telltale signs for you?

Open botrytis character = ?

botrytis laced =?

I always have difficulty describing Botrytis. I just know it when I taste it.

Not good enough!!!

Sorry…I was born to lose!

A slightly bitter honeyed taste is what I most associate with Botrytis.

Above is good. A sense of bitter and dusty rides on peach or apricot nectar but is difficult to separate from the grape taste. The most commonly botrytisized wine grapes like riesling, chenin blanc and semillon lend their specific fruit essences to the botrytis mold and tend to conceal its taste.

To get a sense of the flavor of botrytis in isolation, go into the woods a few days after rain and knock a cloud of spores from a mature mushroom. Inhale a few spores and taste the bitter and dusty sensation on the tongue. You’ll find a musty component also.

Of course preferably do the test on a non posionous mycetozoan, although you probably will not get enough of a dose of spores to be harmful even on a deadly variety.

Golden color is usually the first clue, then a very fragrant aromatic nose of ripe peaches or apricot, then apricot in the mid palette and a long silky finish .

it’s not just sweet or honeyied there is the taste of a bit of mold or mustiness in the grape.
aka the noble rot.

Apricot musk is the telltale thing to me…

Sharpness that grabs the back of my throat on either side between where my wisdon teeth once were and the glands that swell when you get mumps, combined with burnt apricot as in laetrile - bite into an apricot pit (do not eat too many, they are zsupposed to be poisonous), combined with balsa wood honey.

Yes, what Suzanne said… a lot of people confuse the taste of botrytized wine with the taste of botrytis itself. While botrytized wines taste honeyed, that’s a result of what botrytis does to the grape, not the taste of botrytis. Botrytis is of course a rot… so the taste of botrytis is anything but sumptuous. There is something of a mothballed mustiness about it. Sometimes it smells animal, like wool fresh off the sheep.

Keith - This is the clarification I’m looking for. Are tasting notes that speak of botrytis actually describing that mouthball mustiness or are they actually talking about the characteristics that botrytised wines share -ie. honey, apricot, etc.

Also, is there anything specific to botrytis that imparts spiciness?

Simplistically speaking…you’re sitting with 2 botrytised wines…ie. Pinon Cuvee Botryitis…and a Sauternes…how is one evaluating the degree of botrytis??? There’s got to be a better way for me to explain what I’m trying to uncover here.

Depends on the context and the person doing the writing, I think. The term is definitely used incorrectly very often, so there is that to think about. I think a lot of people know that Sauternes is botrytized and then assume that every flavor component of a Sauternes that’s different from a dry white Bordeaux is the taste of botrytis, so you occasionally see people raving about “loads of botrytis” or something like that when they really just mean loads of sweetness.

Also, is there anything specific to botrytis that imparts spiciness?

Will have to defer to the chemists on that one but I don’t personally understand how you would get from rot → spice. Wine + oak barrel on the other hand can often do it…

Simplistically speaking…you’re sitting with 2 botrytised wines…ie. Pinon Cuvee Botryitis…and a Sauternes…how is one evaluating the degree of botrytis??? There’s got to be a better way for me to explain what I’m trying to uncover here. >

If you mean trying to get some sense of the % of botrytized grapes just by tasting… I dunno. Certainly beyond my sensory skills.

Thank you, Keith.

I think incorrect usage of the term in many of the notes I’ve read is the cause of my confusion.

I found this post from Steve Webb (affiliated with Bill Blatch’s Bordeaux Gold) interesting because he claimed that you can’t taste botrytis, only its effects:

http://www.wineberserkers.com/viewtopic.php?p=411907#p411907" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Steve Webb:
2. Botrytis - contrary to what most people will tell you it is practically impossible to taste Botrytis. What you are mainly tasting is the effect of Botrytis, the mould that develops on the grapes dessicating them, concentrating the natural esters/flavours and sugars, leaving also the by product of the process - glycerol. More Botrytis = more concentration of natural flavours but it is important that the flavours are good in the first place as good Botrytis on bad/unripe grapes can be worse than no Botrytis at all

Interesting post. I think I’m mostly with him except that I’d submit that even if botrytis can’t be tasted, it can definitely be smelled…

Smells and tastes just like a vanilla creamsicle. Also, smell an orange children’s aspirin. That’s Botrytis.

I can’t really agree with that. I don’t have a whole lot of experience with botrytized wines (I can probably count the number on two hands), but in my opinion botrytis certainly carries a signature aroma/flavor separate from the concentrated honey and stone fruit that many dessert whites show. It definitely is one of those ‘you know it when you see it’ things. The best way I can describe it is like a mild truffle with this interesting spice aspect to it. The funny thing is that not all botrytized wines seem to show this particular character. Some Sauternes that I’ve had have shown it in spades, while others have not. It has not been prominent in the few Tokaji that I’ve had either.

Regardless of whether you taste it directly or indirectly (and I think it makes sense that it’s more indirect), the telltale sign for me is a metallic steeliness on the finish of a wine.