Defining Musty Attics, Band-Aids and Rotten Eggs with Keith Grainger, Author of Wine Faults & Flaws
Introduction
When it comes to wine, what do descriptors like the musty attic, rotten eggs and Band-Aids mean? How does a wine’s packaging make it more susceptible to faults? Are there ways you can fix a faulted wine at home rather than throwing out the bottle or returning it?
In this episode of the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast, I’m chatting with Keith Grainger, author of Wine Faults & Flaws: A Practical Guide.
You can find the wines we discussed here.
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Giveaway
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Highlights
- Why is it helpful to smell your wine glass before pouring?
- How can you gracefully handle receiving corked wine in a restaurant?
- Why is cork taint more detectable in sparkling wine?
- Which simple test can you do at home to confirm if your wine is really corked?
- How can you identify oxidized wine, and why does this occur?
- What is the difference between the beneficial oxidation in Sherry and oxidation in other types of wine?
- What are the causes and ways to prevent reduced wine?
- Should you be concerned about heat damage on wine?
- How does Brettanomyces impact wine aroma, and what’s behind the differing opinions on its desirability?
- Why are sulphites used in wine production, and should you be concerned about consuming them?
- How can the histamines present in wine impact wine consumers?
- What’s behind the increasing prevalence of lightstrike, and how does it impact wine?
- How can you identify different types of pyrazines in wine?
- Should you invest in a wine fault kit to learn more about wine faults?
- Which simple tricks can you use to improve the taste of a reduced or corked wine?
- Why would Keith love to share a bottle of wine with composer and conductor Ennio Morricone?
Key Takeaways
- Keith’s explanation of descriptors like the musty attic, rotten eggs and Band-Aids was helpful. Different wine faults have different characteristic odours and flavours which can tip you off to their presence.
- A wine’s packaging can make it more susceptible to faults. For example, wine in clear bottles are more prone to lightstrike; while certain types of screw caps can cause more oxidation.
- His suggestions on ways you can fix a faulted wine at home rather than throwing out the bottle or returning it were clever. For example, you can swirl cling wrap to reduce cork taint and use a copper coin for reduced wine.
- He also cleared up my mistaken belief that oxygen can pass from outside through a cork closure. Any oxygen that comes into the wine was in the cork in the first place and it’s slowly released into the wine.
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About Keith Grainger
Keith Grainger is an award-winning wine writer, educator and consultant to the wine industry. He is the author of ‘Wine Faults and Flaws: A Practical Guide’, which won the coveted 2022 Prix de l’OIV.
His previous book ‘Wine Production and Quality’ (co-authored with Hazel Tattersall) won the Gourmand Award for the Best Wine Book in the World for Professionals, and is mandatory or recommended reading for many wine courses, including university oenology programs.
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Transcript
Keith Grainger (00:00):
Wines sealed with a screw cap are more likely to show post bottling reduction. It’s worth looking inside your screw caps because the seal isn’t the screw part of the cap, it is the liner inside. You get two different types of liner. One that’s normally silver in color that will let no oxygen at all into the wine. Another one look a little bit like white plastic inside that will allow a limited amount of oxygen in. People often think that wine sealed with cork breathes through the cork. It doesn’t. Any oxygen that comes into the wine was actually contained in the cork in the first place. It slowly released into the wine.
Natalie MacLean (00:43):
Ah, I didn’t know that. Wow. Very cool. I love these science nerdy things. So screw caps, it’s better if there’s generally the white capsule at the top,
Keith Grainger (00:56):
The white line, that can be very, very good.
Natalie MacLean (01:05):
Do you have a thirst to learn about wine? Do you love stories about wonderfully obsessive people, hauntingly beautiful places and amusingly awkward social situations? Well, that’s the blend here on the Unreserved Wine Talk podcast. I’m your host, Natalie McLean, and each week I share with you unfiltered conversations with celebrities in the wine world, as well as confessions from my own tipsy journey as I write my third book on this subject. I’m so glad you’re here. Now pass me that bottle please and let’s get started.
(01:47):
Welcome to episode 269 When it comes to wine, what do descriptors like, musty, attic, rotten eggs, and band-aids mean? How does a wine’s packaging make it more susceptible to faults, and are there ways you can fix a faulted wine at home rather than having to throw out the bottle or return it? In today’s episode, you’ll hear stories and tips that answer those questions in our chat with Keith Granger, author of Wine Faults and Flaws, a Practical Guide which won the coveted 2022 Pre Deua. This is part two of our conversation, but you don’t need to have listened to part one first. If you missed it, go back. After you finished this episode, one of you is going to win a personally signed copy of his terrific hardcover book that retails for $220. All you have to do is email me and let me know that you’d like to win Keith’s book. I’ll choose someone randomly from those who contact me at [email protected].
(03:00):
In personal news, I’ve just sent a sound clip to Tan Tour Media, one of the largest audiobook producers in the US that has published some of my favorite authors, although we’ve signed the deal. The clip is an audio audition of me reading from Wine Witch on Fire rising from the ashes of divorce, defamation, and drinking too much. This is such a personal book for me that I hope they’ll allow me to narrate it versus hiring an actor. The other challenge is getting the sound quality high enough such that they’ll let me record from home versus having to spend a week in Toronto at their studio at home. I can space out the recordings without going hoarse as it’s quite a strain on the voice to read with emotion and energy four to six hours a day. I know because I did that from my first book, red, white and Drunk All over a wine soaked journey from grape to glass, which you can get from audible.com.
(03:58):
My wonderful podcast editor Alex gave me some excellent advice about positioning my microphone as well as feedback on the various places I recorded sound clips around my house so that I could send in the best one. Thank goodness I will not have to jam myself into a small closet to get the best acoustics. It was claustrophobic in there any who I should know very soon, whether or not I’ll get the green light to narrate it or to be able to do it from home, please keep your fingers crossed for me. If you haven’t got your copy of Wine Witch on Fire yet and would like to support it and this podcast that I do for you on a volunteer basis to ensure it continues, please order it from any online book retailer no matter where you live. It usually arrives in a day or two, and of course the ebook is instant.
(04:48):
Every little bit helps spread the message. In this book of Hope, justice, and Resilience, I’ll put a link in the show notes to all the retailers [email protected] slash 2 6 9. If you’ve read the book or are reading it, I’d love to hear from you at [email protected]. I’m also on a mission to find and review the best low and no alcohol wines, mixed drinks, spirits and beers on the market. I’ve discovered some wonderful surprises, so I’ll include a link in the show notes with the ones that I’ve found so far. I’d love to hear from you if you have any brands to recommend that I try. Okay. On with the show, there was another story of an expert tasting a wine and at first he thought it was corked, but what was happening really
Keith Grainger (05:44):
That was me at a colleague. Another one is sat their local with it said few people die in the last year, very sadly, where the wine fair in London and tasting wines from western Australia with a great wine maker called Larry Rabino, and Larry makes wines under his own label. He also makes them under the Robert Oatley, Robert Oatley label, and a colleague of my taste of the wine, Richard Bos excellent wine taster, picked other wine he read, passed it back to Larry, said Larry, this wine’s tainted. I picked mine. He really thought the wine was tainted. Then I picked up a clean glass off the table, which was also tainted. The glasses had been washed in London water and that put the taint into the wine,
Natalie MacLean (06:33):
The taint. Oh my goodness. And I think that is why it’s good not snooty recommendation to smell your glass in a restaurant before they even pour the wine. I do, and some people think, oh, that’s what the cool kids do, but that’s practical reason why to do that. Oh
Keith Grainger (06:47):
Yeah. As you often get that sort of wet glass cloth, dishcloth nose as well, not to do with corking and straightaway think, oh God, this wine smells off, but it is just the dirty us.
Natalie MacLean (06:58):
Exactly. Or detergent, which is going to not be a friend to wine. So how do you handle this is more like social advice or you believe your wine is corked or you know it is and you’re in a restaurant. How do you gracefully send the bottle back? What do you say? How do you handle it?
Keith Grainger (07:16):
Of course, I’m the most antisocial social person you’ll meet.
Natalie MacLean (07:22):
Exactly. Plug your nose.
Keith Grainger (07:23):
Yeah, send it back and mention my name.
Natalie MacLean (07:27):
Yes.
Keith Grainger (07:28):
Now I think what you do is say, remember that the wine is not fit for purpose and I personally would say I very rarely send a wine back, but this one’s really undrinkable. It really is faulty. Yeah.
Natalie MacLean (07:42):
I probably defer a little too much because I am a so-called wine expert, but I will get the server sometimes to say, or could you smell this wine? And often they’ll pick it up right away and then I’m sort of conclusion with them saying, oh yeah, it’s a bad bottle. But I mean I would push the point if they said, Nope, I’ve had a problem madam.
Keith Grainger (08:03):
It’s actually just say you would influence us. Right?
Natalie MacLean (08:06):
Yeah,
Keith Grainger (08:07):
Exactly. At one point I will just make back to the halo Marisol, the tain in sparkling wines is detectable at a really, really low level and I gave my grain of wheat, but we are looking at a 10th of a grade of wheat and therefore you are far more likely to notice it on sparkling wines, but once again, never think twice about center of the back. The sparkling wines are so delicate.
Natalie MacLean (08:30):
Yes. Why is it more detectable in a sparkling wine?
Keith Grainger (08:34):
Probably simply because the way the aromas are working, the way the fizz is making all the aromas more volatile. Okay, so to get it quite quickly, again, there’s a little hint at home. Sure. If in any doubt if a wine is, I’ll use the word cork again, pour some into another glass and add about twice the amount of mineral, not tap water, just distill mineral water. If the aroma is the same or greater, it is the ness halo adderol problem. Okay. If it’s diminished, it is not. It is something else. Huh.
Natalie MacLean (09:10):
Neat little science trick. Yes. As long as it’s not shadow Margot or something. Exactly. Watering down. So too much oxygen is also the enemy of wine as it is to a lot of other substances. Air makes Neil’s rust fruit turn, brown wine tastes stale and turn a deep yellowish or brownish color. Oxidized wine is another sort of bacteria related faults or it’s a fault, right, not attained.
Keith Grainger (09:33):
Yeah. Never say straight away. It can be chemical, it can be enzymes, all sub occasions, it can be bacterial oxidation is the most likely you’ll find. I’m not going to distinguish between these today. Sure,
Natalie MacLean (09:47):
Thank you. No, I understand. I’m not to dismiss the science, but yes, just some more generalizations that we can keep in mind. So does it occur mostly oxidized wine when the wine is being made because it’s been overexposed to air during the wine making process or the aging or at some point
Keith Grainger (10:07):
Had occur at any stage with wine making? More likely is if the binder retriever be careless and had vats have not be completely full. There’s been some oxygen, some air on top of the vat and then the wide will oxidize. The same can happen in barrels. Now, barrel maturation is of course a controlled oxygenation. Shouldn’t really use the word oxidation on this, but once again, if the barrels are not topped up properly, then oxidation can occur, can occur in storage if the wine’s being stored badly.
Natalie MacLean (10:42):
Yeah. Okay. And so what does oxidized wine taste or smell like?
Keith Grainger (10:47):
A low stage pig can just smell a bit of a bruised apple. When it starts getting more heavily oxidized, you start getting dried fruit coming into it. Bitterness, you start getting those foco sherry like and those is even if the wines not another sherry, and if you taste the wine, it’s bitter. It is dried out and sometimes when wines have got oxidation, they can also become very vegetable. So very cabbage brussels sprout.
Natalie MacLean (11:18):
Yeah. Not at all appealing. And yet you mentioned Sherry, I dunno if it’s correct to say, but the oxidized taste is part of the wine’s desirable character. Of course it has other fine characteristics, but what is going on with Sherry? Why is it a good thing in Sherry?
Keith Grainger (11:33):
Well, there’s two different types of Russia say methods of Asian sherry, one of which is the biological Asia, which is what happens with fino sherry man et where the wine has been aged under crust of yeast, the floor yeast, which keeps a lot of the oxidation at bay. It does sit a little bit through. So we start getting this compound called acid aldehyde so that pheno sherry nose is acid aldehyde, but the OSA type of sherry tend to be deeper in color. They’ve been deliberately aged in buts that are not completely full. So allow to now you need a wine of the right structure for this to be beneficial. So if this were to happen on a ade for example, or sauvignon blanc, then it would always be damaging. But if it happens on a wider for the right structure, then it can be beneficial.
Natalie MacLean (12:30):
And then similarly there’s another fault, the reduced wine, there’s an absence of oxygen, smells like stagnant water or something decomposing can racking moving the wine from one barrel to another in the winery fix this problem. Or what about letting the wine breathe in the glass at home? Yeah,
Keith Grainger (12:48):
Firstly, letting the wine preva the glass can be very beneficial. You need to really swirl it round around quite a bit and probably leave it for a bit of a while. The aromas reduction are very vast. They can wine us, but it drains. If the problem is hydrogen sulfide that bad egg nose, that one is so easy to pick up and to re fat. Hydrogen sulfide is a poisonous gas, but the wine can smell of garlic and the smell of onion. If you ever smelled a skunk, you probably never want to smell one again, but those can be the noses of reduction. It’s a very complex process. Once again flying sealed with a screw cap more likely to show you what is called post bottling reduction. And it’s perhaps worth looking inside your screw caps because the seal is of course the screw part of the cap.
(13:46):
It is the liner inside and you get two different types of liner. One that’s normally silver in color, which is what is called a sen tin liner, and that will let no oxygen at all into the wine. Another one is what is called a senex liner, and those normally look a little bit like white plastic inside that will allow a limited amount of oxygen in. But certainly since the Adventist screw caps, many producers have been having to change their wine making change how much sulfur dioxide they’re adding to the wine to fit the closure. Now I don’t think that’s a good thing. I think the closure should fit the wine and not the wine naked the other way round. There is a producer of synthetic closures called Noor who make closures with different oxygen transmission rates at the winery, choose which type they want, how much oxygen they want to get into the wine. Just one little hint here. People often think that wine, if he’s sealed with a cork, it sort of breezes through the cork. It doesn’t, any oxygen that comes into the wine was actually contained in the cork in the first place and gets slowly released into the wine.
Natalie MacLean (15:03):
I didn’t know that. Wow. Very cool. I love these science nerdy things and so screw caps, it’s better if there’s generally the white sort of capsule at the top,
Keith Grainger (15:16):
Not necessarily as we are. All this is black or white. Exactly. There is the boundary screw caps are great old sun wines, they’re not so good aren’t other wines but a wine with a short shelf life and they’re talking for example, so belong to speaking, speaking people will drink within two years or so of the harvest. Yes. The S next the white line. That can be very, very good. Okay. Something that’s going to be kept for longer. Probably the serin nine, the air that is ultra simplistic. Any of your listers are in the closure industry. They’re probably going to tear me apart of trying to so
Natalie MacLean (15:53):
Simple. They get your book and realize that there’s more depth of course behind your answers. But what would be the difference between reduced and motorized wine?
Keith Grainger (16:01):
They’re the other end of the spectrum. Motorized is oxidized at its worst.
Natalie MacLean (16:06):
Oh, okay.
Keith Grainger (16:07):
So reduce is completely the other end. Although sometimes paradoxically you can get some similar notes coming out. Mad rice wine I say will smell of sherry, might smell of nuts, might smell a curry, but certainly might smell rancid. And sometimes of course heavily reduced wines can smell rancid as well, but technically speaking other ends of the spectrum.
Natalie MacLean (16:32):
Okay. And is motorized wine when it’s faulted like that, does it also smell like cooked or old or Yes, fatigued.
Keith Grainger (16:39):
Yeah, of course we’re making madeiras go through the ew for process where the wines are deliberately heated up. But while you’re talking about cooked, say some problems are on the increase and heat damaged wine, which can become motorized. Wine is a problem and that certainly is where the wine tastes cooked. You could often tell it if a wine sealed with a cork, if the cork seems slightly raised in the bottle, the wine’s probably got too hot at some point in its lifecycle, most likely when it’s been shipped sitting on the dockside or in the containers on the ship. And in these days when everyone’s trying to save energy and fuel ships in many cases are getting cooler, people aren’t paying for air conditioned containers. The Y can actually get up to 40 degrees sea in those containers so well over a hundred degrees.
Natalie MacLean (17:33):
Oh my goodness. And so could leaving a wine in your trunk of your car on a hot summer’s day matter it would it happen that quickly?
Keith Grainger (17:42):
Just ask my principal in Cyprus, distributing wide in Cyprus is not so, and quite often the salespeople not only selling the wine, they’re also delivering the wine will pick it up one day, leave it in the car, IE pick it up on a Friday for delivery on Monday
Natalie MacLean (18:02):
And then it’s cooked or could
Keith Grainger (18:04):
Be that is cooked well and truly, whether truly, and then of course no one blames the delivery guide. All blame the winery.
Natalie MacLean (18:11):
Of course. And just to go back, you mentioned Madeira, so that’s the fortified wine from southwest Portugal and island that’s purposely cooked three to six times. So why again like Sherry, why is this desirable in Madeira and not in other wines?
Keith Grainger (18:26):
It’s down to the structure of the
Natalie MacLean (18:28):
Wine really. The wine. Okay. Yeah.
Keith Grainger (18:30):
Madeira said this volcanic island just off quite, in fact it’s never African than Portugal, although it’s owned by Porto. But these are these big heavy structured wines. In fact, the idea of cooking the wine came by accident. Of course when the chips were getting be calm in the sun, nobody like us talking about the heat damage paradoxically at the found the wine was better in the destination when they left the departure port.
Natalie MacLean (18:54):
Fascinating. And let’s go back to Brett Nemisis, which is part of the yeast family and often referred to by as the cool kids by Brett can make some smell like barnyard. You quoted someone as saying, great Burgundy should smell like Yes.
Keith Grainger (19:11):
That is not my quote Isaac, you
Natalie MacLean (19:13):
Were quoing somebody
Keith Grainger (19:15):
I was quoting Anthony Hanson, great burgy expert, added the first edition of his book on Burgundy in 1982. He said, great, burgundy smells a sh. By the time he got the second edition, he realized that wasn’t really of the case and that the wines had been infected were not contaminated because this is made with the wine by the actions of this yeas
Natalie MacLean (19:40):
And so, but still today some people consider that barnyard, euphemistically barnyard smell in burgundy desirable. So what is it? Is it just a preference or is this truly a falter, a taint or whatever?
Keith Grainger (19:55):
It depends where you’re coming from.
Natalie MacLean (19:57):
Okay. A
Keith Grainger (19:57):
Number of my colleagues say immediately they an objective taster. I Keith Granger, I am not an objective taster, I’m a subjective taster because we cannot be objective. It’s like trying to be honest. We strive to be, but we cannot be. We’re influenced by culture, by education, by trading, wherever you come from, what we grown up with, you name it. So to a do world winemaker, which our devices generally speaking is a major, major fault, be they from Australia, New Zealand, California to someone in France. Let me use the R Valley as an example. When lots of the wines showed the compounds of brimes, it is part of the terroir. It is what to make this wide individual. So there is no black or white except to say to my mind a little bit adds a bit of spice, a little bit of how should we put it? A little bit of ness makes the wine a little bit different. A lot makes the wine undrinkable. Sure. Back to my boundary. Absolutely.
Natalie MacLean (21:02):
And that is the case with a lot of things like a little bit of oak might be nice, but a lot of oak can mask the actual wine itself.
Keith Grainger (21:10):
The best analogy I can give is watching a comedian and this comedian is very risque and is going very near the line. It is highly amusing and then they go over the line and they just become crude.
Natalie MacLean (21:22):
Very good analogy. Love it. Excellent. Now a lot of people are concerned about sulfites, they think they’re allergic to them and so on. This is the preservative sulfur dioxide or SO two that’s added to wine to give it a longer shelf life. And just so listeners know, sulfites exist in nature and are in all wines. Even if it says no sulfites added, it’s still there, but in large amounts, of course it can smell like rotten eggs. But should people worry about sulfites as much as they do?
Keith Grainger (21:52):
Okay. Firstly just need to distinguish between the nose of excess sulfur dioxide and sulfites and the reduced wine which are volatile sulfur compounds. So as again today I’m not going to go into the wiser wear force, but if a wine smells of rotten eggs, it’s got volatile sulfur compounds, it is reduced. If it smells of sulfur that’s like striking in a match or dbo and the are sure they still doing and they kind of do roast chestnuts on the coke braiser in the street, that smell of a burning coke that is excess sulfur dioxide. Now that is sloppy wine making. There is no doubt about it. The amount of sulfur dioxides that can go into any wine is regulated by law in every major market. The actual technical amount can vary it a bit from market to market, but it is regulated. The ness in wine tends to be less than many other things. People each or drink without thinking about it. Orange juice could have sulfites, added dried fruit, sultanas, raisins, et cetera. And I’ve
Natalie MacLean (23:01):
Heard that. How do they compare it? A glass of orange juice has more sulfites in it than a whole entire bottle of wine.
Keith Grainger (23:07):
It can do. It can do, yeah. Okay, so should people be worried first if you suffer mass? The answer is definitely yes because you can have problems. Generally speaker authorities are trying to reduce the amount of sulfur in widen that the limits get reduced every decade or two. But I’m going to now fall out for the natural wine people and say that sulfur is the great antioxidant which discussed oxidation, but antimicrobial agent as well. But the hard thing is that of all the sulfur dioxide that added to the wine, only part of it acts as an called a free sulfur dioxide and od a part of that as an antimicrobal agent. Now it started to get very, very tricky, but people could say I produce my sulfur, and they could have still quite ready to be high levels of free sulfur dioxide. On the other hand, someone can say, I’ve got high sulfur levels, I’m trying to reduce it, but they’ve got low levels of free sulfur dioxide. So it is very, very tricky.
Natalie MacLean (24:14):
Yeah, absolutely. And I’ve heard, I don’t know estimates that only really less than 5% of the population truly has an allergy to sulfites.
Keith Grainger (24:23):
Yeah, it’s probably more like 1%, but I’m not a medical person, so I don’t want to be quoted on that yet. Just one thing before, leave the sulfur though. So the part that is antimicrobial is what is called the molecular su dioxide and the amount that works will depend on the pH that is called an acidity of the wine. So if you want to make a wine the way you can reduce sulfur, you need to keep your acid levels fairly high and your pH level is fairly low
Natalie MacLean (24:54):
Because acids are natural preservative. So high acid wines will be less likely to be prone to those issues but also need less sulfites.
Keith Grainger (25:03):
Yeah, I remember quite recently I found in 1987 reasoning cabinet from a friend of mine in Germany and 87 wasn’t a great year. This why I just hidden away. I brought it out for shop to pieces, but because it wasn’t a very ripe vintage that acid levels were through the roof, the wine was wonderful.
Natalie MacLean (25:22):
Oh, that’s great. That’s great. A happy cellar discovery. But are people usually reacting to histamines in wine when they get that headache? I mean, too much wine period causes a headache, so let’s just be honest about that. But is it more of a histamine reaction than the sulfites?
Keith Grainger (25:37):
Alcohol causes problems, sulfites can cause a problem, but biogenic amines of which histamine is the most important definitely can cause problems as well. So all of them.
Natalie MacLean (25:49):
Okay, and where did the histamines come from and why? Where do they stem from?
Keith Grainger (25:53):
Okay, but this one, again, VR get a getting very, very technical. We are looking at actions of lactic acid bacteria on amino acids in the wine, but I can’t explain that as simple as that’s okay. I’m very careful to say there’s one of my colleagues always all true technic who you want to understand. I think sometimes you don’t need to understand, just have the basic, our computer works because it works,
Natalie MacLean (26:17):
Sure, just turn it on. But are there certain wines that tend to have more histamines than others? People are asking me all the time I get these headaches, what can I avoid or what can I steer clear of to maybe reduce
Keith Grainger (26:29):
Lots of sparkling wines? Can I have quite high histamine nose? Definitely proseccos and champagnes, et cetera. But there are many, many others. It’s one of the areas where the industry is trying to move forward because the health risks from wine aren’t just from alcohol. There are other things as well.
Natalie MacLean (26:48):
Okay. And you mentioned band-aids before. Where does that come from or what is that?
Keith Grainger (26:53):
Sorry, I mentioned
Natalie MacLean (26:54):
Band-aids, the smell of bandaids. Bandaid.
Keith Grainger (26:55):
Yeah. This is another Brett compounds. So the barnyard is one, but there’s a compound called four e four fetal that gets the bandaid. Now what is interested is that both the barnyard compound, which four eol and the bandaid compound four E four fetal are often present but in different proportions in wine, in normally quite a high level of four E field. But beer, I love my beers as well, my craft beers. Some brewers actually love, which the vice beers and some of the lambic brewers from Belgium, for example, and even some then ec Californian brewers. But the compound then tends to be more the four EAL Aya coal. So you don’t get that bandaid aroma on the beers.
Natalie MacLean (27:43):
Okay. Now you’ve written about lights strike. It’s on your website right now as well. It’s really interesting. It can affect wines bottled in clear glass because they only filter out 10% of UVA. Those damaging light versus green bottles filter 50 to 90% brown bottles, maybe 90 to 99%. Yes. Well yeah, I feel like I’m in science class again in a good way. And it’s more likely to affect sparkling wines, white and rose, whereas red are more protected by their own color compounds or phenols. Phenols.
Keith Grainger (28:16):
Yeah. So
Natalie MacLean (28:16):
What does light strike smell like or look like?
Keith Grainger (28:20):
Back to our reduced compounds because it’s very closely related to reduced compounds, skunk garlic, cut cabbage, Marmite. Sometimes I will say straight away, it’s why the growing faults today, a number of faults are in decline. So the corkiness, the halo aerosol is in decline, but light strike is on. The increase number of restaurants are going to, they’ve got the ultraviolet white, their bottles of sparkly wine, champagne in clear glass sitting under the light. The sparkling wines can be affected after eight minutes under an ultravit light.
Natalie MacLean (28:55):
Really? Oh my gosh, you didn’t know that. That’s incredible. Yeah, they usually have these out on display or you’ll see glass racks as you walk into the restaurant. It looks beautiful. That’s so good for the wines.
Keith Grainger (29:06):
Some champagne producers who liked for their wise and clear glass use a set of fade wrap, a color ceap fade wrap, which should not be taken off on any circumstances until the bottle’s correct.
Natalie MacLean (29:18):
And Louis Roter being the most famous one with Christelle, right?
Keith Grainger (29:21):
Yes, exactly. Yeah. So otherwise you’re going to get his horrible safe produced ethal sulfide aromas. A number of champagne producers are actually moving back to colored glass. In fact, for their roses doesn’t look so attractive, but I’m all for it because it protects the wine.
Natalie MacLean (29:36):
Excellent. Yeah, I was interested to see that beautiful orange cellophane, which looks beautiful on the cristel. It blocks 98% of UV light. We have to mention pyrazine, they smell like, is it the bell pepper family there? Yeah. Okay. Warmer climates. Are there certain wines that are more likely to suffer from them?
Keith Grainger (29:57):
Right. We’ve moved it to whole new osha now. Yes, we have pyrazine is there are many different types. So let’s say simply that they come from the grapes to start with what they smell like depends on the pyrazine in question. So the one we normally think of and the oxy pyne, I can abbreviate IB mp the MPB with pyrazine, and that’s the one which is the bell pepper. The green probably very highly desirable in the Soviet blanc to a level less desirable maybe in a red wine. But just for example, some regions actually make a finger pad. Kuna Warwick in Australia, they’re red, their Cabernets are often very green. And something I find quite distinctive, and I quite like, if someone gives me a wine to taste blind, pick up that greenness. I always hazardous guess a ura sometimes, right? Sometimes not. So more likely the cool client in that case. But there are other Racine that are false. So there’s one I would give this his full name, two Isop Propyl, free the Foxy. It’s what gives a So-called lay debug taint in wine. If you get laid Deb birds on a cluster of grapes and they stay in during the crushing, the wine will smell of cilantro, coriander, marsy, pan waxy, and there’s another one to be pri, MDMP. They actually start tasting like fungus and you could confuse the wine for a cold wine, but Pyrazine will say, oh, world unto themselves.
Natalie MacLean (31:27):
Okay. Okay, cool. Now time has flown. So I did want to, before we wrap up and we’ll get your details as to where people can get your book and so on. I have kept this, I’ve had this wine faults kit in my basement in three layers of wrap because it smells so badly. So I’m unwrapping it from, oh my god, I can smell it already, the Ziploc bag, then a bubble wrap, and then finally I have it in this. Oh my god, I feel like I’m going down
Keith Grainger (32:00):
Into those. Don’t get too close to
Natalie MacLean (32:01):
Me. Bad cellars. Yeah, you can’t get far enough away. But I just want to show this and we’ll put a link to it in the show notes. It’s the wine fault aromas. And I wanted your opinion if this is a useful tool to learn about wine faults for those who do want to go in depth more or studying for particular exam because it has an aroma wheel, a stinky aroma wheel, and then inside, I’ll just describe it for those who are listening, it has all these vials, vial vials of all these smelly stuff and a card like it’s got cabbage and skunk and everything else. And you can open these vials, God forbid, and smell them to be able to better detect the aromas. Now what do you think of something like this?
Keith Grainger (32:43):
The kit is of use, like all these figures use is restricted by the fact, of course you’re not detected these in a wine environment. You are detected in an odor environment, so they won’t be quite the same. But is abuse because one you’ve got there is from a native van, there is another company called Oxa who make aroma compounds you can use pertaining your wines with. They tend to be more expensive, but they have a compounds could in TDA acid aldehyde for alfin fee or that bandaid, et cetera. But I think you need to be fairly seriously investigating faults to warrant buying these.
Natalie MacLean (33:24):
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve kept it in my basement, so I haven’t been that serious about it at all. But I just thought it was intriguing because at one point I was writing about faults in a highly nonscientific way and just thought this might be useful. Anyway, I’m going to quit the rustling. So Keith, this has been fascinating. We clearly could have a whole course in this. Is there anything that we haven’t covered that you wanted to mention?
Keith Grainger (33:49):
Yeah, just some personal things, yes,
Natalie MacLean (33:51):
Probably absolutely
Keith Grainger (33:52):
Quite strongly disagree. The wine should be assessed using a point scoring system. And quite often then we could have the stupid situation of a point scoring system. A wine’s got a fault, but if you accumulated your points, the fault or the level of the fault is negated by using the points. But in any event, I think we should look on wine as an art, not as a science. And if you go to see a play, if you go to see a concert, if you go to see I love opera. I wouldn’t say that Toska is a 99 point opera and Jonas Cal was a 98 point tener generally, but 96 points off of D, that is absolutely crazy. You say exactly how much you enjoy it. A little trick maybe for your viewers, for those who are not viewing, you can have a slight problem here. My best wine gadget, lots of people swear by various cool screws and obviously caravan and things like that. Absolutely. Here is my best buying gadget. And remember I’m in England. This is a two pence coin, or we could have a one pence coin, but you’ve got your nickles and diamonds and you David, you need a coin with some copper.
Natalie MacLean (35:08):
Copper, okay.
Keith Grainger (35:10):
In the manufacturer, penny, when you get a wine that smells reduce the skunk, the garlic, the onion, put the CO at the glass of wine, swir it round, and after a minute also the wine will taste much less reduced. It will take a bit of the flavor out as well. It must be said. And just another little chip on that, if you get a wine that is badly caught and assor tainted and you can’t send it back, you’ve had it in your cell for 10, try getting some of, we call cling wrap, I think you call saren wrap. Probably crunch up maybe a square beat of it into a glass of wine, put it in there, swirl it round, round, round, and after about three minutes it would’ve taken some of that tank out of the wine. Really, not all of it, but some of it. Those
Natalie MacLean (35:57):
Are fascinating tricks. I love those tips and tricks and we’ll put them all in the show notes as well. That is great. Keith, anything else you’d like to mention before we ask where we can find you online and all that sort of thing?
Keith Grainger (36:09):
Yeah, just wants to give a slightly off topic. I read where we do it out internet to and fro. Before this you asked if I could share a bottle of wine of Eddie person outside the wine world, who would it be? And the person I could give is probably quite a surprise. It’s a composer and conductor and trumpet player called Eddie o Murray and Eddie o Maori Italian Nega from the name is perhaps most famous for writing the scores for all the spaghetti westerns, the Lee Van CLE films, et cetera.
Natalie MacLean (36:43):
Is that the good, the bad and the ugly? Yeah,
Keith Grainger (36:44):
I said your spot on actually. And what I loved about his music, he integrated classic rock, other instruments, all sorts of things and very expressive. A lot of people say John Williams is the best movie composer. I think John Williams is much more sort of one dimensional than Eio Maori Kodi. So Eio, his Italian wide love as well. And Italians I love because they are crazy people and at best they make some of the craziest wines in the world. At worse, they make some of the most tross wines, but the top wines are absolutely brilliant. But I want to give him a French wine to taste, actually were to be a chat o Brion, but not the red wine. The white wine chat o Brion Blanc, which is very rare. And I tasted just a couple of years ago actually was at a dinner. I was lucky enough to be a chat in Deur having a dinner had they served the berry ob blanc. I sitting just staggered across from me was Oz Clark, the English wine writer. We both picked up the glass at the same time and this was one of those not, oh my god, this wine is off moment, but oh my god, this is a wine of the soul moment. I’ve got a shiver going down my spine.
Natalie MacLean (37:54):
Wow.
Keith Grainger (37:54):
So I think NIO would really appreciate that.
Natalie MacLean (37:57):
Yes, as well. He should. Yeah, that’s wonderful. I love that. So Keith, your book is Wine Faults and Flaws. Where can people find it? Buy it, read more about it? There it is.
Keith Grainger (38:08):
Okay, got it. So here we are again. My f and flaw is a practical guide. Yeah. Firstly you can, I’m going to say done tell you right a bit. Get it on Amazon. Okay. Now I say done. Because Amazon take 55% discount for my publisher. I pay me 55% less in royalties. So when they’re giving you 10% discount, don’t think they’re doing you a favor. I’ve actually got nothing against Amazon. I’ve got a lot of stuff of them herself. Sure. My publisher is Wiley. I’m not sure if Wiley, you’re just about
Natalie MacLean (38:37):
On screen. Yes. They’re very much into the educational books.
Keith Grainger (38:39):
Yes. They’re very much into educational academic books. So their website is wiley.com. We’ll put
Natalie MacLean (38:46):
That in the
Keith Grainger (38:46):
Show notes. So yeah, you can buy it on that quite easily. And it’s not a cheap book as you’ll gather. I’m not even going to mention the price because I’m embarrassed, but Oh, that’s alright.
Natalie MacLean (38:57):
It’s comprehensive. It’s meant to be a significant reference
Keith Grainger (39:01):
Book. Let’s be this way. The price of an expensive bottle of wine is more than the price of the book. There you go.
Natalie MacLean (39:07):
Put it in context. Yeah,
Keith Grainger (39:09):
Exactly.
Natalie MacLean (39:10):
Absolutely. And where can we find you online, Keith?
Keith Grainger (39:13):
You can find me on my own website, which as usual, never keep quite as UpToDate as I would wish because there’s always more money making opportunities out there. So www.keithgranger.com, that’s K-E-I-T-H-G-R-A-I-N-G-E r.com.
Natalie MacLean (39:29):
Absolutely. And we will link to
Keith Grainger (39:30):
That. There’s a contact page on there. You could contact me through that. And always interested in people’s anecdotes as well. Wines their mind have tried not sure was at faulty, wasn’t in faulty. Let’s get an opinion. So just give an example back to our Brett chat, za from Lebanon is a wine which historically built its reputation of those farm yard staple notes and now people seek out the old bottles why they’re important.
Natalie MacLean (39:58):
Yeah, so distinctive. Yeah, I actually like it. So I guess I’m a fan of Brett, thank you so much, Keith. We appreciate your time, your expertise, and your patients with non-scientific nerds like me. It’s very helpful to have this background because it’s a big part of wine and enjoying it and knowing what to avoid as well. So thank you for this.
Keith Grainger (40:18):
Thank you so much and hope to talk to you again. So tired, then meet you soon.
Natalie MacLean (40:22):
Absolutely. Let’s continue the conversation there.
Keith Grainger (40:25):
Thank you, Natalie. Thank you everybody. Enjoy your wines.
Natalie MacLean (40:28):
Bye-Bye. Cheers.
(40:34):
Well, there you have it. I hope you enjoyed our chat with Keith. Here are my takeaways. Number one, Keith’s explanation of descriptors like musty attic, rotten eggs, and band-aids was very helpful. Different wine faults can have very different characteristic odors and flavors, which can tip you off to their presence. Number two, a wine’s packaging can make it more susceptible to faults. For example, wine in clear bottles are more prone to light strike while certain types of screw caps can cause more oxidation than others. And it’s that liner under the cap that makes the difference. So look for the white ones, not the silver ones. Number three, his suggestions on ways that you can fix a faulted wine at home rather than throwing it out or returning it. We’re very clever. For example, you can swirl cling wrap to reduce cork tanked and use a copper coin for reduced wine.
(41:31):
And number four, he also cleared up my mistake and belief that oxygen can pass from the outside through a cork closure. Any oxygen that comes into the wine was in the cork in the first place and is slowly released into the wine. In the show notes, you’ll find the full transcript of my conversation with Keith links to his website and books, the video versions of these conversations on Facebook and YouTube live and where you can order my book online. Now, no matter where you live, you can also find a link to take a free online wine and food pairing class with me. It’s called The Five Wine and Food Pairing Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Dinner and How to Fix Them Forever. That’s at natalie mclean.com/class. And all of this is in the show [email protected] slash 2 6 9. Email me if you have a sip tip question or if you’ve read my book or are in the process of reading [email protected]. If you have suggestions on how to improve this podcast or guests I should consider interviewing, please let me know. I’d love to hear from you. If you missed episode 92, go back and take a listen. I chat about unusual wine and cheese pairings with author Laura Orlin. I’ll share a short clip with you now to wet your appetite.
Laura Werlin (42:52):
What you’re looking for, ideally when you are pairing is one of three things. The way I define them is that you have what I call Switzerland. So you have this neutral pairing and you have the cheese and you have the wine and you have them together and they’re fine. They taste fine, nothing wrong, they play well in the sandbox together. And then you have what I call the Titanic. So as we all know, that didn’t end very well, and so you have the cheese and you have the wine, and together they make these other flavors that you kind of wish you hadn’t had. Luckily, that doesn’t happen very often. What are the
Natalie MacLean (43:27):
Bad flavors? Just the clashing or others?
Laura Werlin (43:30):
Yeah. Well, it can be, for instance, soy. So the same kind of cheese that you’re eating, the soft ripened cheese. Yes. With that kind of cheese, the rind is the first thing that starts to deteriorate when it’s going downhill. So you will taste that and taste it with wine and at first it might taste fine, but then all of a sudden it kind of goes south.
Natalie MacLean (43:56):
You won’t want to miss. Next week when we chat with Vanessa Price, the author of the bestselling book, big Max and Burgundy Wine Pairings for the Real World. She’s also the wine expert for the Today Show. She joins us from her home in New York City. If you like this episode, please email or tell one friend about it this week. Especially someone who’d be interested in the wines tips and stories we shared. It’s easy to find my podcast. Just tell them to search for Natalie McLean Wine on their favorite podcast app. Thank you for taking the time to join me here. I hope something great is in your glass this week. Perhaps a wine that has aged to faultless perfection. You don’t want to miss one juicy episode of this podcast, especially The secret full-bodied bonus episodes that I don’t announce on social media. So subscribe for free now at natalie mclean.com/subscribe. Meet me here next week. Cheers.
