Question about sweet tobacco/cigar box notes in Bordeaux

[Chris_Seiber]

Chris I have always thought Raats made the most Loire Cab Franc Clone outside of Loire. It’s gotten pricier, but I used to buy a lot of it. Raats is South African.

Does it have the Loire outhouse character, or just the normal Loire character?

[Robert.A.Jr]

Chris I have always thought Raats made the most Loire Cab Franc Clone outside of Loire. It’s gotten pricier, but I used to buy a lot of it. Raats is South African.

Does it have the Loire outhouse character, or just the normal Loire character?

Aren’t they the same?!?

[DougS]

In the 80s the Bordelais fermented their wines in tank, put it through ML in tank, and barreled the wine down in January and February. The cleaner wine picked up more oak notes from the barrels…hence the cigar box notes. In the early 90s winemakers started to copy what was happening here, ML in barrel right after primary. This gives more integration of oak and wine but not so much in the way of cigar box notes.

Thanks for the input. I’ve suspected this was oak related for some time, but I never knew for sure.

Yet it has a strong (though far from total) correlation to cab franc, too. I doubt Loire cab franc consistently has that flavor because of barrels.

South Africa is another good place to look for BDX blends with sweet tobacco notes.

I think there are probably several compounds at play, and that to some extent different people are talking about different things here. I only get what I think of as tobacco or cigar box notes on Loire Cab Franc if it’s old or Rougeard. To put it another way, I don’t get it in any young Loire CF (that I can remember; there might be a tiny number of exceptions) other than Rougeard. I’m not at all surprised that you perceive things differently.

[Tom_DeBiase]

Here are a couple abstracts that identify some of the actual compounds. There are several others.

Identification of impact odorants in Bordeaux red grape juice, in the...

Aroma composition of red wines by different extraction methods and Gas...

[ToddFrench]

In the 80s the Bordelais fermented their wines in tank, put it through ML in tank, and barreled the wine down in January and February. The cleaner wine picked up more oak notes from the barrels…hence the cigar box notes. In the early 90s winemakers started to copy what was happening here, ML in barrel right after primary. This gives more integration of oak and wine but not so much in the way of cigar box notes.

Great answer, Mel

[Otto_Forsberg]

Oak does contain pyrazine. With all the variables of source, drying, cooperage, it’s not a surprise some barrels impart significant pyrazine while others don’t.

I tried looking for such information, but couldn’t find any. Do you have any sources for this?

I can imagine green parts of oak could contain pyrazines, but to me it sounds really weird if wood suited for barrel-making, seasoned and air-dried for long periods of time and finally toasted over fire contained any pyrazines.

And to be clear, I’m now talking about the same pyrazines we associate with wine aromatics, i.e. methoxypyrazines and such. From what I’ve understood, there are certain pyrazine compounds in oak, but they are very different from the typical green/vegetal aromatics we normally associate with wine, some even capable of contributing to unwanted off-flavors.

[Wes_Barton]

Oak does contain pyrazine. With all the variables of source, drying, cooperage, it’s not a surprise some barrels impart significant pyrazine while others don’t.

I tried looking for such information, but couldn’t find any. Do you have any sources for this?

I can imagine green parts of oak could contain pyrazines, but to me it sounds really weird if wood suited for barrel-making, seasoned and air-dried for long periods of time and finally toasted over fire contained any pyrazines.

And to be clear, I’m now talking about the same pyrazines we associate with wine aromatics, i.e. methoxypyrazines and such. From what I’ve understood, there are certain pyrazine compounds in oak, but they are very different from the typical green/vegetal aromatics we normally associate with wine, some even capable of contributing to unwanted off-flavors.

Your quote is me agreeing with someone else’s assertion, outside of my experience. But, considering all the complaints about “toasty oak”, there’s a reason we don’t see much lighter than “medium plus”. Oak is harsh and green without enough toast.

[Wes_Barton]

I think there are probably several compounds at play, and that to some extent different people are talking about different things here. I only get what I think of as tobacco or cigar box notes on Loire Cab Franc if it’s old or Rougeard. To put it another way, I don’t get it in any young Loire CF (that I can remember; there might be a tiny number of exceptions) other than Rougeard. I’m not at all surprised that you perceive things differently.

Yes. What I perceive as green peppercorn has a component of bell pepper, but must have other compounds at play, more prominently to me. It’s very distinct to me from just bell pepper. But, it seems everyone who doesn’t like it does not make the distinction, calling it bell pepper. Maybe they’re more sensitive to that pyrazine, or less sensitive to the other compounds.

To be clear, it is the green peppercorn character that transforms to tobacco leaf. I’d say the bell pepper component of such wines does lessen, but is likely there as part of the tobacco leaf, whether I perceive it separately or not.

I do have experience with wines where I only perceived significant bell pepper, where it fades quite a bit with a lot of age, but is definitely still there. Some of those, like some old SCM Cabs, do show tobacco, some don’t.

[Rory_K]

Perhaps I’m misinterpreting the aroma, but I frequently find a lovely sweet tobacco note in red wines outside of Bordeaux too, like in Brunello, and some Chianti. In my case it is not, to address Mel’s point above, a euphemism for leafy/stemmy, but very much like a sweet pipe or rolling tobacco. Usually reminds me of the golden Virginia tobacco I used to roll in college, the smell of it before it was smoked of course, not the ashtray!

[Mel_Knox]

Most of my barrel research stuff is at the office, but I don’t recall pyrazines as being a compound in oak.Indeed some people use heavy toast oak chips or ageing in heavily toasted barrels to compensate or, maybe the right word, overwhelm them.

Oak does have compounds that can make wine astringent, but most of them diminish with proper seasoning. I just paid off the people who host my website:
www.knoxbarrels.com

You can get confused there.

One word of caution: when you generalize about winemaking and winemakers, you’re invariably wrong. There are so many different choices to make, people are going to make different ones and get different results, esp with different grapes! Who knew?

A friend named Andy Schweiger of the same name winery did a barrel trial. He invited his winemaking buddies to taste the results. They voted three faves;he had those three analyzed by ETS, the wine lab in St Helena. One had toast levels off the chart; one within the boundaries of the spider graph and the third in between. All said medium and/or medium plus toast.

[Wes_Barton]

Perhaps I’m misinterpreting the aroma, but I frequently find a lovely sweet tobacco note in red wines outside of Bordeaux too, like in Brunello, and some Chianti. In my case it is not, to address Mel’s point above, a euphemism for leafy/stemmy, but very much like a sweet pipe or rolling tobacco. Usually reminds me of the golden Virginia tobacco I used to roll in college, the smell of it before it was smoked of course, not the ashtray!

Definitely. I’ve gotten it in CA Sangios, too.

[Wes_Barton]

One word of caution: when you generalize about winemaking and winemakers, you’re invariably wrong. There are so many different choices to make, people are going to make different ones and get different results, esp with different grapes! Who knew?

Absolutely. And you can figure out what practices make a great wine from one site, try to replicate that, and fail miserably. There are so many variables. We’ve seen big failures, where a practice fine tuned for one set of conditions is blindly mimicked elsewhere and doesn’t work so well. We’ve seen failures where people try treating one grape variety like another . We also see fine tuning, like where producers treat adjacent rows of different Pinot clones very differently.

[Otto_Forsberg]

But, considering all the complaints about “toasty oak”, there’s a reason we don’t see much lighter than “medium plus”. Oak is harsh and green without enough toast.

I’m guessing you mean that you don’t see. I’ve had several wines made in virtually untoasted and very lightly toasted barrels. Oak is definitely harsh without toast, but it’s not green. It can be very woody, though.

Oak can be green if it isn’t seasoned properly, but those green notes aren’t methoxypyrazines. Those are lactones and terpenes that can give piney and dill notes to wine. Very different from pyrazines.

Most of my barrel research stuff is at the office, but I don’t recall pyrazines as being a compound in oak.

This was my understanding as well.