The Noble Rot
I have a friend who purchases wine based on how attractive the label is. This is a little like choosing a date based on looks alone. The result is too often a rather dull evening. It’s rare that a connection is made between the exterior beauty and inner quality and we usually end up kicking ourselves for thinking that this time it would be any different. Eventually we learn that tired expression, “you can’t judge a book by its cover,” is a cliché for a good reason. For the vintner, this open-minded approach is taken when considering the less-than-appealing appearance of grapes affected with “noble rot,” Botrytis cinerea.
Botrytis is the mould that is allowed to grow on certain grapes and eventually gives special dessert wines their intense, exotic flavor. The affected fruit looks like a botched Petri dish experiment from chemistry 101. The affected grapes are encased in what can only be described as a nest resembling that of a tent caterpillar – definitely not something one would imagine able to produce an exceptionally consumable end product. The “elephant man” of the vineyard, as repulsive as it appears, is not lacking inner quality or character. Botrytis is known the world over as noble rot for good reason: some of the most highly flavored, luscious and complex wines are made from grapes affected with the mould.
Like all moulds, Botrytis grows best in conditions that supply FATTOM: Food (sugar), Acid (juice), Temperature, Time, Oxygen and Moisture. Generally speaking, grapes are left on the vine into the late autumn, when the mixture of morning dampness and afternoon sun encourages fungal growth. Spores from the mould lie dormant in the vineyard soil and on the vine bark until brought to life with the right FATTOM. In good years, the spores latch onto the skin of the grapes and drain moisture slowly, leaving behind a shriveled grape with a high concentration of both sugar and acid. The result is on ugly grape that produces honey-rich nectar so pleasing it’s been known to bring even the most jaded wine drinkers to tears of ecstasy. In bad years, if the FATTOM isn’t just right, if the morning mists turn to rain and the sun doesn’t shine, the rot becomes ignoble and turns the grapes to mush. More often that not, the wine maker doesn’t bother harvesting the fruit;
Like many great culinary and oenological discoveries it seems the nobility wrought by the rot was “first” discovered more than once. Austria, France, Germany, and Hungary all lay claim to initially squeezing and drinking juice from moldy, shriveled grapes. The version I like best concerns, indirectly at least, Vlad the Impaler, better known as Dracula.
Published in The City Palate food magazine.
