SFChron: Intentional Brett Infected Wine

Interesting article, as linked by WineTerroirist, by Esther in the SFChron:
SFChron:BrettWine
on the Manic wine by Mandy Donovan, a Carneros PinotGris that she's intentionally infected w/ a craft-beer brett strain. And then goes on to describe the frequent brett infections in the Cain wines, which is where she works.

Anybody tried this Merisi Manic PG? And??
Tom

California winemakers seem to have a bad case of brettanophobia. IMO a touch of brett is what makes the finest Rhone wines so much better than their CA counterparts. Of course there are wineries such as Beaucastel that have had chronic problems with too much brett. When I visited Beaucastel in the late '90s I was struck by how squeaky-clean everything was kept. And I noted that they had the peculiar practice of steam-cleaning the grapes when they came in from the vineyard. I told my companions, "they have brett as one of the indigenous yeasts in their vineyards, and they know it." Some years later they admitted that publicly. So IMO brett is fine if you keep it under proper control.

This is the first time I've heard of brett in a white wine, let alone intentionally introducing it.

-Paul W.

I think that a modest amount of most types of brett enhances a red wine. Of course, being European and a wine lover for close to 60 years, I can be accused of being inoculated against this "pest".

I remain unrepentant.There are wines where the brett breaks through my tolerance ceiling such as a recent Madiran Prestige 1997 from Brumont where the barnyard aromas had a antiseptic mix which was particularly unpleasant. Therefore I do acknowledge that growers who allow its presence in their wine are taking a risk because it is difficult to control, as are customers who buy that wine because in my experience brett tends to get more aggressive as the years pass and can vary from bottle to bottle.

That said, I do find that the wines of producers like Beaucastel and Joguet, who have been trying to do their best to eliminate brett, now often seem to be lacking something which added to their character.

A few years ago I ran a poll on US, UK and Australian wine sites and found that the majority of those polled, even in sweaky clean Australia, enjoyed a mild degree of brett in their wine, just as I do.

[Jenise]

There was a companion article to this that introduces the idea that millennials are actually attracted to brett because they grew up eating little packets of baby carrots in their school lunches. Those stupid carrots, which are cleaned with bleach as part of the mechanical process of peeling adult carrots into 'baby' sizes, actually carry a lot of brett. Growing up on them, millennials grew accustomed to that taste and some may even associate it unconsciously with motherly love.

Not a millennial, but let the record show that I've never bought those carrots, not even once, and I avoid them when they appear on crudite platters. Never noticed a brett flavor, just a lack of flavor period.