We’re going to take a journey down this smelly path to explore the origins of some mostly bad and sometimes good wine smells.

We all know that wine has aromas (i.e. smells that come from the grapes). There’s also a whole host of smells that have their origins from other sources. When they’re good we typically call them a “bouquet”. When they’re not we often hear people say that the wine is “corked”. But, is the wine really corked? To find out, we’re going to take a journey down this smelly path to explore the origins of mostly bad and sometimes good wine smells. Hopefully we will provide some new insights and just maybe some new vocabulary for stinky and fine wine bouquets.

Corked (TCA) wine smells like old wet newspapers, damp cardboard or perhaps an old damp cellar. That’s it. Please don’t attribute the entire host of “stinky odors” to the wonderful natural cork that has been protecting your wine.

A reduced wine smells like rotten eggs, burnt matches, garlic, onion, leek, cooked corn and/or cooked tomato. These odors are typically caused by sulfur buildup when the wine closure has been too good (i.e. not allowed enough air transference). You will most likely get this smell from a wine that has a screw top, synthetic enclosure or a very high end natural cork that has had some time to age.

Let’s not be too hard on sulfur, because when the sulfur contains the right amount of mercaptans (volatile thiols) it can bring about the desirable scents of boxwood, citrus, passion-fruit, grapefruit, smoke, flint-stone, roast coffee and eucalyptus. Too much though, and you have scents of broom, cabbage, burnt rubber and a perennial favorite of ours, “cat urine”.

“Wait a minute”, you say, “my wine has the smell of ammonia, barnyard, horse, sweat, band-aid, mouse droppings, burnt leaves, manure, stable, medicine, wet dog, bad cheese or something pharmaceutical and/or rancid. Doesn’t this mean that the wine is bad and/or corked?” It might be bad but it’s probably not corked. Rather, the most likely culprit is brett, short for brettanomyces, which is a bad yeast that is found naturally on wine grapes. Brett may have been left in the barrel from previous uses. Brett can also become active if not enough sulfites are added during aging or bottling. The characteristic is most likely to occur in wines without added sulfites.

Brett is not always bad. Small amounts offer up aromas of leather, spice and wild game.