The Botrytis Thread

WINE TALK
1

I recently attended the VDP auction in Trier, as well as two tastings that preceded it: one for the wines presented at auction and the other to taste the 2017 vintage more generally. Both tastings were great experiences. One aspect of the wines that really struck me, or perhaps one aspect of my evaluation of the wines, was how difficult it was for me to pick out botrytis. Whereas I think I can generally spot an eiswein blind, it was not always clear to me whether a wine was botrytized or not. Wines that had a rich, honeyed character were sometimes botrytized, but were sometimes just old school auselse made from ripe grapes. Three wines in particular struck me as having an overt, distinctly mushroom aroma on the attack that I really enjoyed, and each of those wines had a significant percentage of botrytis. However, there were many botrytized wines that didn’t have that mushroom note. Other tasters with far more experience than me spoke of “dirty” vs. “clean” botrytis, and while I can certainly identify a dirty botrytis that leads to small of mold, I think the other tasters were making more subtle observations than that.

I’m interested in other tasters’ experience with botrytis, particularly in German riesling (less so in wines where the wines macerate in the botrytis, as I don’t drink those). I’m linking a very helpful and enlightening post that Greg Tatar wrote on the subject in 2010, and I hope Greg will chime in again here for further thoughts.

How do you identify botrytis? How do you differentiate between dirty and clean, if at all?

Greg’s 2010 post:
https://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=465525#p465525

2

As we discussed in Germany I find heavy botrytis comes across as a kind of ‘grilled apricot’ note.

But I think it’s a pretty complex area (before you begin to mention wines cut with Eiswien.

I know what others mean when they mention ‘dirty’ botrytis but find it hard to put it into words myself, I guess it’s a dirty (duh!) mushroom note. What’s interesting also is the cause. There are quite a lot of different moulds affecting grapes, I guess it may be in part due to that.

I appreciate that isn’t hugely helpful other than bumping the thread! I’ve never been hugely interested in winemaking techniques…

3

Thanks Russell. That’s helpful enough! Did you think that Egon’s GK auslese and Lauer’s LGK auslese had a mushroom note, and did you think it was dirty?

4

I don’t really recall on the mushroom but I thought them both excellent wines, which generally doesn’t correlate with dirty botrytis.

5

Don’t the mushroom notes appear when the botrytis turns to grey mold? I.e. when the conditions are too damp and instead of just desiccating the grapes, the botrytis infection spreads uncontrollably? At least I’ve noticed more stuffy, champignon-like aromas in wet years, whereas the botrytis is more “clean” honeyed, dried apricot and tangerine marmalade kind of character when the conditions remain dry and warm (yet humid enough for the botrytis to appear).

I find there are often some pleasant, mildly mushroomy aromas in most botrytis wines, but I’ve come to associate the unpleasant, champignon-like mushroom tones with grey mold.

6

Thanks for starting this thread. I too have trouble identifying Botrytis in sweet wines. I have also bought and drank sauternes from heavily botrytis influenced vintages like 2003. I have never detected savory or earthy notes in sweet wines. I have often noted rancio which I assume is different. I think rancio is caused by reductive winemaking. Is it?

7

The opposite. Rancio is usually caused by oxidation or heat - it’s something you find in Cognac, Madeira, some Italian sweet wines, etc., particularly when aged in wood for a long time. The 2003 vintage in Bordeaux was really hot and while they had rain in September that did in fact produce botrytis nicely, they also had excessive heat and a lot of grapes were basically raisined, with the sugars coming less from botrytis and more from dessiccation and over ripening.

Alex - thanks for finding that post. I’d forgotten about it entirely.

Gray mold is botrytis cinerea, which is what is sometimes called “noble rot”. It’s the same thing. There have been a lot of studies, particularly in France and Hungary, regarding genetic markers and whether the symptoms are caused by specific strains but it seems that the symptoms are mostly due to the climate and weather. That makes sense, because that same fungus attacks a lot of fruits and it would be weird for a strain to develop solely to sweeten grapes.

The key is that you need enough moisture to encourage the growth, but enough heat and wind to prevent it from getting out of hand. So there’s usually a body of water, a long Indian summer, fog in the morning and sun in the afternoon, and appropriate grapes. In Tokaj you have the rivers - Tisza, Ondava, Latorica, Bodrog, in Austria you have Neusiedlersee and the Danube, in Germany you have the Rhine, which also flows through Alsace, in the Loire you have the Loire, and so on. There are a few regions in the world that have not been explored but where you should be able to make good botrytized wine - I would imagine that in New Zealand there should be some regions, in much of central Europe, maybe in north Spain, and in parts of the US like Michigan. I’m sure there are other regions as well.

I was once in Rioja at Tondonia and mentioned to Maria Jose that it seemed like they should be able to do it there. She said she thought the same thing but her father told her they couldn’t do it. Hoping to prove him wrong, she tried anyway. “So what happened?” I asked. Her father was right. He had tried himself. They both thought that the river would help, but the other conditions weren’t favorable.

I find it more apparent in the wine than it is on the berries themselves if you eat them.

Ultimately I suppose the only way to get good at picking up the botrytis is to drink a lot of botrytized wine! [cheers.gif]