It Must be Something in the Water
Brandon MarcCurrently there is a heated debate raging through the South African wine community that has distinct bearing on the direction of the South African wine industry. For those of you who don’t know, I’m referring to the ‘earthy characters’ detected on the nose of many South African wines.
These undesirable characters have also been compared to a ‘vegetal pong’, ‘dead fruit’, ‘sundried tomatoes’, ‘rhubarb’ and my personal favorite ‘burnt rubber’. These unusual aromas could be a result of many different offenders responsible for wine faults such as a basic reduction, Brett, mercaptan or the endemic virus problems currently present in Cape vineyards.
I believe there is one potential offender who has been overlooked, not even receiving a mention. It was back in a university Microbiology class where I first learnt of Geosmin. Geosmin is a metabolite of several classes of bacteria, but particularly Cyanobacteria or more commonly blue-green algae, and is responsible for the ‘earthy characters’ detected in fresh mountain water for example.
In this particular lecture we were asked if we had recently noticed this ‘earthy character’ in our tap water at home. We all raised our hands. Our lecture then went on to explain this phenomenon. As we had had a particularly dry summer that year, 2005 I believe, more sunlight was penetrating our dams and reservoirs. This sunlight was stimulating the proliferation, and therefore the increased metabolism, of the so called blue-green algae. The result? Large amounts of Geosmin was being released, making its way into our tap water giving it the characteristic ‘earthy taste’ that we all had detected at home.
‘…could it be possible that Cape vineyards have been irrigated with Geosmin rich water?’
Therefore, considering the last few years have been some of the driest years experienced in the Western Cape, could it be possible that Cape vineyards have been irrigated with Geosmin rich water? This would result in higher concentrations of Geosmin in the wine produced from those vines, ultimately producing wines with more pronounced ‘earthy characters’.
I must clarify that I am no specialist (at least not yet) when it comes to the technicalities of wine making, and the above proposal is a mere suggestion as to why South African wines are being criticised in the way they are. But for now the mystery remains unsolved, and any suggestion is better than none… right?
Cheers!
Brandon Marc
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[...] Brandon Marc wrote a fantastic post today on “It Must be Something in the Water”Here’s ONLY a quick extractCurrently there is a heated debate raging through the South African wine community that has distinct bearing on the direction of the South African wine industry. For those of you who don’t know, I’m referring to the ‘earthy characters’ … [...]