2007 Arcadian Syrah Sleepy Hollow Vineyard- USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Lucia Highlands (12/11/2013)
I don’t usually mind a bit of brett, but there was enough here to mar an otherwise very nice wine for me. Beyond the horsiness, there was some solidly developed plum, with the kind of blood, bone and iron that make for an evening’s entertainment. I went back to it several times over 90 minutes in the hope that the brett would blow off and it did not. Glad I have another bottle in storage so I will have to check in later this year to see if this was just a bad bottle. (85 pts.)
I went back and looked at my unfiltered bottling panel to see if there was any kind of 4 ethyl-phenol count and while there was a small number it was well below threshold with no active brett culture in the wine at bottling. What this means is that at some point there was a brett bloom during the elevage and it was treated and kept at bay.
Sometimes with whole cluster fermentation the aromatic characteristics will be miss read as brett. Not suggesting this is the case here but I wonder if it was as you said just an off bottle.
This is a current release and is regularly poured in our tasting room so I see it often enough to know it and while it has a lot of pencil and pepper. I don’t pickup a brett quality. It may be that you have a much lower threshold than I do but I would be interested to hear if you tasted the second bottle would the notes be consistent.
Thanks for the feedback, Joe. I wouldn’t doubt that I was getting my wires crossed on this. It was definitely a horsey/sweaty aroma and just on the edge of unpleasant for me, although I like a nice barnyard wine, so go figure. It’s as likely that I was just not taking the time that the wine needed. I’ll try and get the other wine from storage in the next few weeks and give it a whirl–you’ve piqued my curiosity to try it again.