TN: Peter Lehmann Barossa Cabernet Sauvignon 2002

[Grinners]

No smell, very heavy toasty oak. Bitter heavy oak, no fruit. Opaque brick red. No acid, negligible tannins - despite all this no hint of cork taint what so ever on the nose.

IMO unless this wine was fukt or its in somesort of unprecedented hibernation stage - its rooted. Opened one of these recently and had very similar experience.

Put it beside the bed to use on any intruders entering the house

[MatthewW]

Sounds corked

[GRB]

Grinners,

Have a search for TN's on this wine. I would bet most of them are heaping praise for great qpr on this wine. I tried it last about 4 months ago and it is still very young there was no way it was heading toward what you describe. My guess is a dud bottle.

Glen

[Grinners]

Yeah i bought it because i was well aware of the comments re: this wine but this is twice in a row its seriously failed to merit anything.

IMO no where near what it was cranked out to be OR seriously bad bottle variation - I wont be buying anymore of the specials that are still floating around for it

[Adair]

Sounds like serious bottle variation. My tastings have this as one of the bargains of the vintage.
Adair

[Waiters Friend]

Definitely off bottles by the sounds of it. I've had the wine within the last few months, and not had a negative reaction to it.

[scuzzii]

I've tried 3 bottles and all have been great. I've tried this wine for 4 years (2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003) now and the 2002 is the best vintage by far for this Cab Sauv.

[Roscoe]

Random oxidation

[lantana]

Random oxidation

Without any oxidative characters, I don't think so. More likely to be that insidious type of TCA taint that just mutes the fruit.

Grinners, how was it showing the next day or did it go down the sink on the night? If it was tainted it should have been in full bloom the next day.

lantana

[Gary W]

Actually I think it may be that you have a really unusual palate. Your comments on 2003 Wynns BL , 04 Footbolt and this wine are all negative..and the fact that you like Wydham 555.. either that or you are phenomenally unlucky with cork taint/faulty bottles. Not sure which. Either way you seem a bit out of the mainstream - nothing wrong with that though.

GW

[Roscoe]

Random oxidation

Without any oxidative characters, I don't think so. More likely to be that insidious type of TCA taint that just mutes the fruit.

Grinners, how was it showing the next day or did it go down the sink on the night? If it was tainted it should have been in full bloom the next day.

lantana

I find oxidised wine bitter and that was the only character Grinners described apart from toast and oak. Toasty oak brings up the possibility of caramel characters- another suggestion of oxidation. Also my memory of this wine is that it is not bricking yet- but I could be wrong on that one.
If it was TCA, I don't think it would have been in full bloom the next day.
I am not a great fan of this wine (in the sense that I haven't bought any for the cellar), but the last time I tasted it (6 months ago) I thought it was certainly good qpr.
Gary may well be on the right track.

[Grinners]

Gary W Posted

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Actually I think it may be that you have a really unusual palate. Your comments on 2003 Wynns BL , 04 Footbolt and this wine are all negative..and the fact that you like Wydham 555.. either that or you are phenomenally unlucky with cork taint/faulty bottles.
GW

Hmm no i doubt it. Had the Wynns 2003 BL with GF's mum and dad and we all thought it was the Sandalford Element Cab Shiraz (i.e. tasted blind and guessed wrong) and yeh had it again on my own and experience wasnt much better.

04 footbolt nope as that was due to the fact i hadnt decanted/couldnt at the time and had significantly improved the next night. Additionally i had this with GF's old man so his glass went down sink too. My experiences here simply confirmed the benefits of decanting young wine, I'm sure most people would have turned their nose up at the taste of this upon opening.

Last night with the PL CS 02 had with my mum n dad and they too could only get intense oak/weak fruit/poor or no nose.

Was recently at a fellers red wine/poker night and the line up of opened wines was: Penfolds bin 28 03, Ingoldby Reserve shiraz 02, Thomas Hyland CS 02, Pepperjack CS 04, Torbreck woodcutters shiraz 05. Felt the run was really enjoyable and this had nothing to do with a skin full =/ Ingoldby was probably the WOTN but Torbreck offered a completely different and therefore pleasing experience to the rest of the wines.

I found your comments lantana interesting, re: TCA taint --> muted fruit --> better on the 2nd night? Therefore i ask what is TCA taint and how does air (i.e. time) cause it to disappear? Unfortunately the old man and lady finished it off so i cant comment on whether or not it was better the next night.

Impression was just both bottles lacked fruit seriously, possibly im very unlucky but if thats the case it sucks

Thinking about it more the only thing that IMO and in my experience and knowledge that could have suggested there was something wrong with it was the lack of any tannic structure. Hopefully lantana's response can help me add another experience to the armoury in identifying possible wine faults.

[Alex F]

Actually I think it may be that you have a really unusual palate. Your comments on 2003 Wynns BL , 04 Footbolt and this wine are all negative..and the fact that you like Wydham 555.. either that or you are phenomenally unlucky with cork taint/faulty bottles. Not sure which. Either way you seem a bit out of the mainstream - nothing wrong with that though.

Interestingly he described Rosemount Show Reserve 2001 as being bitter as well, bought from the same shop? The first tasting note he posted for this wine was very positive in fact... apart from this he seems to have a very low tolerance for oak...

I like/liked the 555... but its been a while since I last drank it...

as an aside theres a handy quote button on the top right of each post, or simply "[ quote = "xxx"]Quote here[/quote]", no spaces in the square brackets.

[Alex F]

I found your comments lantana interesting, re: TCA taint --> muted fruit --> better on the 2nd night? Therefore i ask what is TCA taint and how does air (i.e. time) cause it to disappear? Unfortunately the old man and lady finished it off so i cant comment on whether or not it was better the next night.

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think TCA gets worse over the next day... or was this brett? hmmm

the only thing that I've personally experienced to improve with time is reduction.

[Roscoe]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I think TCA gets worse over the next day... or was this brett? hmmm

the only thing that I've personally experienced to improve with time is reduction.

TCA neither gets worse nor better over a day, in my experience. It just persists.
SO2 should blow off, faster with a copper coin.

[Alex F]

copper coin? yuck.

[lantana]

Sorry, it seems as if I've been misunderstand when I said it would be in full bloom the next day, what I meant was that the TCA would have 'blossomed' as in it would be more obvious. TCA from my experience does get worse with more exposure to air. We often do a little test with TCA suspects that are not overtly wet dog or wet cardboard and that is to put a little hot water in a small sample of the wine, it invariably brings the TCA character up so that it can be more easily detected. Hope this clears that up

lantana

[Waiters Friend]

Sorry, it seems as if I've been misunderstand when I said it would be in full bloom the next day, what I meant was that the TCA would have 'blossomed' as in it would be more obvious. TCA from my experience does get worse with more exposure to air. We often do a little test with TCA suspects that are not overtly wet dog or wet cardboard and that is to put a little hot water in a small sample of the wine, it invariably brings the TCA character up so that it can be more easily detected. Hope this clears that up

lantana

Good tip, lantana, on the TCA front - difficult to try in a restaurant, but certainly reasonable to try at home. Then back to the retailer with the offending bottle - which is something not enought of us do!

[Roscoe]

Sorry, it seems as if I've been misunderstand when I said it would be in full bloom the next day, what I meant was that the TCA would have 'blossomed' as in it would be more obvious. TCA from my experience does get worse with more exposure to air. We often do a little test with TCA suspects that are not overtly wet dog or wet cardboard and that is to put a little hot water in a small sample of the wine, it invariably brings the TCA character up so that it can be more easily detected. Hope this clears that up

lantana

I've been thinking about this one and have thought of a hypothesis to explain it.
If the bottle has been significantly drained and particularly if it has not been closed, a lot of the aromatic compounds from the wine will escape over time, eventually muting the "winey" characers. Of course the TCA is so pungent to the people that can detect it well, it will not blow off but may become more obvious because of the loss of other aromatics- it will come into the foreground. TCA is detectable at very low concentrations in sensitive people.
With the water method, the other aromatics will be diluted by the water, thus reducing their olfactory effect. Again the TCA, because it is such a characteristic, pungent and highly detectable smell, may become more obvious because of the dilution of the other aromatics. This is mainly relevant to lightly tainted wines because as we know, if it is more heavily tainted it totally dominates the bouquet from the start.
Any other thoughts on this? This theory relies on the assumption that TCA is detectable at very low concentrations in sensitive people.

[Alex F]

I am not much of a chemist, but what you say certainly makes some sort of sense. My only concern is surely the tca concentration will dilute at the same rate as the other aromatics? Are you saying that the aromatics will blow off first if there is less of them so that their (comparative) levels to TCA is low enough that the TCA comes to the fore?

Alex

[Roscoe]

Alex Thanks for yor reply
I am suggesting that TCA is so easily detectable by sensitive people in very low concentrations that it persists with time and is detected more easily than the volatile aromatics that we normally associate with wine. I guess I am saying that with the water method, halving the concentration (for example) has more of an effect on the appreciation of wine aromatics compared with TCA.
Needs a proper study to confirm it. Maybe existing data would be supportive (or not).

[lantana]

Alex Thanks for yor reply
I am suggesting that TCA is so easily detectable by sensitive people in very low concentrations that it persists with time and is detected more easily than the volatile aromatics that we normally associate with wine. I guess I am saying that with the water method, halving the concentration (for example) has more of an effect on the appreciation of wine aromatics compared with TCA.
Needs a proper study to confirm it. Maybe existing data would be supportive (or not).

OK here's some further thoughts. Roscoe have you ever had a wine or been to a tasting where a wine has just shown nothing in the fruit aromatics department, you probably don't think much about it and move on to something else, then go back to it and the wet dog/cardboard mustiness of TCA is then very obvious (or sticking out like wet dog's balls)? This has happened to me on numerous occasions over the years, having not really discussed it much with anyone, I merely thought that it was the TCA's components exposure to oxygen that brought about the change, just like many wines need decanting to show their wares, but because the TCA sits on top of the fruit aromas, they will never come up with oxygen, TCA will always win that battle.
In regard to the hot water experiment, I believe that this merely accelerates the oxygenating (is that the right word?) process, which will bring up the typical TCA aromas. I think we all know what the 'O' in 'H2O' stands for and the heat also assists to accelerate the process. If you left the same glass of wine out overnight or even for a while, the TCA aromas will come up eventually anyway, but the hot water just helps to show it straight away, so you can get on with it and open something decent

lantana

[Roscoe]

Lantana
I am not a chemist but I do not believe that the oxygen in the water molecule would react with the tca molecule. Anyway TCA has a very low detection threshold and if the compound could be oxidised, I don't think you would make the threshold any lower. I think water just dilutes effectively all the other aromas, but if you are sensitive to TCA, it may remain well and truly above the your threshold and stick out more obviously like a sore thumb in the aroma profile of the wine. I think unfortunately TCA is a very stable compound.
I am very sensitive to TCA and so I am very rarely in doubt as to its presence. If I open a bottle and detect it, I will recork it if a recent purchase (to return) or chuck it out if an old one. I don't go back to it. I suspect that if there is big head space for a period after opening that TCA may become more prominent for the reasons that I have suggested. I will do an experiment next time to look at this, hopefully in a blinded way. In my experience, I think that the more you look at a tainted wine, the more obvious the taint becomes, possibly because your mind tends to focus on that part of the flavour/aroma profile. This may lead to a false perception that it is getting worse and complicate the whole issue, hence the desirability of a blinded experiment with a control.

[griff]

Couple of thoughts;

- TCA is a byproduct of mould converting trichlorophenol (usually from disinfecting corks etc with chlorine/bleach) to trichloroanisole. I wonder if heating it up/adding moisture/adding oxygen would increase the rate of production by the mould involved.

- Yes, TCA is reasonably stable. Could be true that the other aromas in the wine 'blow off' leaving the TCA. I suspect two other processes occuring however. Heating the wine may raise the volatility of the TCA thus increasing the detection rate (as mentioned earlier it is already the detection threshold quite low for most people but variable - I wish I couldn't detect it at all! ). Also, perhaps our sense of smell and taste (although probably only smell - a corked wine just tastes flat to me when I hold my nose) don't desensitise to TCA as easily to the other aromatic/volatile compounds that are normally found in wine. As we all know, after tasting many wines, we tend to desensitise and lose our ability to distinguish between them.

Just a couple of Sunday afternoon ponderings...

[Roscoe]

Griff
Excellent thoughts.
My thoughts on your thoughts:
Heating up may increase production of TCA except I think this would take more than a few minutes to achieve, which I think is the time frame of this method. I think it would take hours to days and the mould would need to be alive, of course. Also, I understand that the cork is thought to be the production, storage and distribution facility for TCA. I think it is unlikely that much production would occur in wine without an attached cork. I could be wrong.
Heating up the wine could make the TCA more volatile, although it also makes other things (like ethanol) more volatile. However, this may be having an influence.
The desensitisation issue is interesting. Taste and olfaction desensitise differently. I think that olfactory sense for a paricular substance can attenuate very quickly (within seconds) after very strong exposure to that substance. (Ever noticed how your own shit doesn't smell nearly as bad as everyone else's). I find that if I take very stong sniffs of a wine, its aroma tends to disappear very quickly. If I take short delicate sniffs, the aroma lasts much longer. However, if you sniff really hard and desensitise yourself, the sensation should recover within a few minutes. That's one of the reasons to come back to a wine after a little break. I think you can acutely desensitize yourself somewhat to TCA, but you may well be right- it may be harder to desensitize yourself to TCA compared to other more subtle aromas. This could explain why TCA seems to be more obvious as you keep on sniffing a wine. I think that the sensitivity to all the aromas will recover within a few minutes though if you get your nose out of that glass.

[lantana]

Griff
Excellent thoughts.
My thoughts on your thoughts:
Heating up may increase production of TCA except I think this would take more than a few minutes to achieve, which I think is the time frame of this method. I think it would take hours to days and the mould would need to be alive, of course. Also, I understand that the cork is thought to be the production, storage and distribution facility for TCA. I think it is unlikely that much production would occur in wine without an attached cork. I could be wrong.
Heating up the wine could make the TCA more volatile, although it also makes other things (like ethanol) more volatile. However, this may be having an influence.
The desensitisation issue is interesting. Taste and olfaction desensitise differently. I think that olfactory sense for a paricular substance can attenuate very quickly (within seconds) after very strong exposure to that substance. (Ever noticed how your own shit doesn't smell nearly as bad as everyone else's). I find that if I take very stong sniffs of a wine, its aroma tends to disappear very quickly. If I take short delicate sniffs, the aroma lasts much longer. However, if you sniff really hard and desensitise yourself, the sensation should recover within a few minutes. That's one of the reasons to come back to a wine after a little break. I think you can acutely desensitize yourself somewhat to TCA, but you may well be right- it may be harder to desensitize yourself to TCA compared to other more subtle aromas. This could explain why TCA seems to be more obvious as you keep on sniffing a wine. I think that the sensitivity to all the aromas will recover within a few minutes though if you get your nose out of that glass.

I know for sure you're right about one thing you've said ........................... my shit doesn't smell nearly as bad as everyone elses

lantana

[Roscoe]

I think you can acutely desensitize yourself somewhat to TCA, but you may well be right- it may be harder to desensitize yourself to TCA compared to other more subtle aromas.

On further reading, this may be wrong. I have read that you can habituate to TCA very quickly, faster than nearly anything else.
This suggests a new hypothesis. Maybe stuffing around with adding warm water gives your olfactory sense time to recover. Waiting until the next day to have a good sniff is no doubt even more effective.