This past weekend, I was privileged enough to help relieve a bottle 1988 Château Mouton-Baronne-Philippe (Pauillac) of its contents. Beautiful wine from a cool region at 12.5% alcohol. If people want to eradicate greenness, simply more ripeness is a bad way to go. Vine health, management of light intensity (canopy management, ground cover, etc.) and other factors should rather be looked at. Not easy, as for instance many old vineyards are virus-infected, but we all know older is better i.t.o. vines. Sure, some wines with a green streak are under-ripe, which is bad, but a hint of pyrazines, in a fruity, full, balanced wine (Jordan CWG Sophia 2006 jumps to mind) is so much better than the hollow, burny, homogeneous counterparts that often results. Why some judges would be okay with a measure of brett (fungal yeast spoilage) adding a touch of complexity and not pyrazines (from the grape) confounds me.

It’ll be a sad day indeed if all wine judges start looking at any form of pyrazines as faulty. We already have too many green-freaked judges that are easily impressed by unbalanced and ultimately difficult-to-drink showy wines. Pyrazines are grape-derived and a stylistic issue (the kind of fruit expression one might prefer or not) – not a fault. Great debate, though, and pretty good food for thought for winemakers to work harder in the vineyards (simply more ripeness at high sugar levels is no good).