Albariño is one of my favorite wine discoveries of the last decade. I had never heard of it before a midsummer trip to Miami in 2016, where if you didn't have dinner reservations, you had to dine outside in the sweltering heat and humidity. I stumbled upon this grape on a wine list and was hooked. I drank it the remainder of the trip and have been a devoted and enthusiastic consumer ever since.
Albariño is a white grape native to Northwest Spain and Portugal where it’s called Alvarinho. It is also now grown in many other places including Lodi, California where I live and drink it regularly.
Albariño is an example of an "aromatic" grape which tends to give off higher amounts of natural aromas than other grapes that are described as neutral or non-aromatic. Typically this grape smells and tastes of stone fruits like nectarine, melon, citrus like lime and grapefruit, with subtle hints of honeysuckle and occasionally beeswax. But "aromatics" brings me to the topic of this article.
I was recently hosting a big red wine tasting were we opened an Albariño to refresh our palates. Once I held the glass up to smell the wine I immediately noticed that it smelled like garlic. Don't get me wrong, I LOOOOVE the smell of garlic, but not in my wine. To be honest, it wasn't off putting but just shocking at first because it was so unexpected. Then I remembered that I had experienced this one other time before and it was with the SAME Albariño. I had even written an Instagram post about it.
"Albariño is one of my favorite wine discoveries of the last decade. However, I was taken aback with the smell of this one! Normally quite aromatic with stone fruit, melon and citrus but this bottle stunk. Smelled like rotten eggs. It was off putting. What was wrong?
This wine had the scent of reduction faults. When a wine is reduced, it doesn't have enough oxygen to polymerize (that is, to have its molecules combine), and while the wine gasps for air, the result is usually skunky, stinky, sulfurous smells that remind you of eggs, burnt matchheads, or stink bombs and swamp gas.
Why did this happen? Maybe because the wine was bottled with a screw cap that does not let in any oxygen, maybe because it was the winemaking method? Stainless steel fermentation in a closed container??
I finished this wine 2 days later after it spent time in the refrigerator 1/2 full and exposed to some O2. Much better! The wine returned to what it should be, only more subtle.
Bodegas Martín Códax was founded in 1986 and... the fruit for the Rías Baixas Albariño was hand picked, de-stemmed and pressed gently to preserve the delicate varietal characteristics of the Albariño grape. Fermentation occurred in stainless steel tanks for three weeks at a maximum temperature of 64˚F. Forty percent of the blend underwent malolactic fermentation to enhance the flavor complexity in the wine, with the remainder held back to preserve the naturally crisp acidity of the Albariño grape. The wine rested on light lees for four months with no oak contact.
-- Winemaker's Notes"
Lets get a little geeky and talk about reduction faults / reduced wine. As you read in my brief Instagram summary, reduction faults are stinky but are not permanent. Sometimes these "off-smells" are even perceived as desirous, especially in the oak aged wines from Burgundy, France (think Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, especially those from Montrachet) with their signature earthy aromas.
Lets start with a little background. Red wines and white wines are not made the same way. Red wines ferment on their skins at warmer temperatures in open top containers while white wines are pressed off of their skins prior and undergo a much cooler fermentation, often in closed stainless steel tanks that reduce oxygen exposure.
The change in white wine making is a relatively recent one, as last century both red and whites wines were made similarly and the white wines were more orange (this is making a comeback now) and bitter due to the skin contact and not the light yellow fruit forward wines we have today. The new winemaking techniques caught on rapidly and are now practically standard. Of course, sometimes this care to reduce oxygen exposure and allow a more pure expression of the grape in the glass can be taken to extremes and no oxygen exposure or "airing out" happens. This does not allow many of the volatile aromatic compounds that are naturally formed during winemaking when yeast and sulfur (both natural in the grape itself as well as added sulfur) combine to escape. Instead they are trapped in the bottle and are not released until it is opened and the unfavorable aromas rush out, nearly incapacitating their victims!!! I'm kidding, sort of. The aromas do rush out but dissipate over time.
That means that if you open up a wine and it has some of the off aromas listed above, don't just throw the wine out. You can simply swirl the wine around in your glass for a while and see if the faulty smells go way, or you can pour the wine in a decanter or even just put it aside (in the refrigerator or on the counter) with the cap / cork on it with a glass of the wine removed as this should get it in contact with a some O2. Chances are, it will be better.
Most Albariños are meant to be drunk while they are young and fresh however, this wine does have an incredible potential for aging. White wines that have ageing potential are sometimes made in a reductive style as this increases their longevity. Another way to make a wine in a reductive manner is to increase the contact with the yeast used in the fermentation. This is called "lees ageing" and is utilized quite a lot in Albariño winemaking. The dead yeast cells are kept in contact with the wine for several months while they break down and release mannoproteins into the wine that give it a rounder, softer feeling in the mouth. These proteins guard against oxidation but also form compounds with sulfur in the wine and create the reductive aromas mentioned above.
With this post, I wanted to highlight that not all off aromas in a wine are necessarily bad and that if you smell something that isn't right, don't be too hasty and get rid of the bottle. Sometimes (not always) the wine aromas will improve with a little time in the glass or in a decanter to let it air out. This is ONE of the reasons you will be offered a whiff of the wine you order at a restaurant before it is poured for everyone. With experience you will know the difference between a temporary reductive aroma and a permanent fault in a bottle that should be returned.
Reductive aromas are not more likely to be present in a bottle of Albariño, but this just so happened to be my experience with a single producer over a couple of vintages.
Full disclosure, I've been playing around with AI a bit. Here are some of the bloopers that didn't make the cut...
Cheers,
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