+- WineBoard (https://www.wines.com/wineboard)
+-- Forum: GENERAL (https://www.wines.com/wineboard/forum-100.html)
+--- Forum: For the Novice (https://www.wines.com/wineboard/forum-2.html)
+--- Thread: What is "dumb phase"? (/thread-18875.html)
- wdonovan - 02-20-2006
I've read this term but never known what it was until maybe Saturday. I opened a bottle of 99 Aloxe-Corton. Can't remember the negociant but it was a reputable one. This was suppose to enhance the ragu of smoked duck over white pepper fetucini. Sounded like a great plan but after freshly opening, there was little nose. An immediate taste showed an almost tasteless wine. After a half our of breathing, no change. I had to keep looking at my glass to make sure no one had stolen it. It was the least flavored Burgundy I've ever tasted. No fruit. No earth tones. Not stripped leaving plain alcohol taste. Just plain nothing. Was this my first knowing encounter with the "dumb phase"?
- Thomas - 02-20-2006
I don't like to try online diagnostics, but let me ask a question: do you know if you are able to pick up TCA (cork taint)?
Your description of the wine's taste falls into that category, but your comment about its smell does not.
Incidentally, "dumb phase" is largely ascribed to wines that go through changes either after shipping or just through their bottle life cycle. I don't believe anyone has a handle on when or if a wine will go through such a phase, and only through experience can a taster tell if a wine is going through the phase.
[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 02-20-2006).]
- wdonovan - 02-20-2006
Doesn't TCA have a smell and taste related to mold? This wine just tasted empty.
- Thomas - 02-20-2006
TCA taint smells like wet cardboard or used socks. The tainted wine is stripped of all fruit and nuance and tastes mainly like alcohol.
Big BUT! There are levels of TCA taint that, if low enough, some people will not smell even though the wine will have been ruined by the taint.
That's why I said that you describe the taste of a TCA tainted wine but not the smell. You might not have been able to pick up the smell at whatever level it had been tainted.
Having said that, I also know that some TCA tainted wines can be slight smelling at first and then they start to smell worse as they sit in the glass. The wine is still usually flat.
I am pretty sensitive to TCA, but I have had some wines that started out with the faintest hint of it in the nose and then had gotten increasingly worse in the glass.
- wdonovan - 02-20-2006
I'm thinking it was not TCA. I've had wine with all fruit gone just leaving alcohol. This wasn't the case. Just tasted dead.
- Thomas - 02-20-2006
Like I said,
"I don't like to try online diagnostics..." [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/smile.gif[/img]
- wineguruchgo - 02-21-2006
Ok - here's my best shot at explaining "dumb".
After a few years the tannin structure will begin to break down in a wine. When the wine is young the tannins are distinguishable and the fruit is pleasant. When the tannins start to break down they aren't there anymore and eventually you will be left with just fruit.
Sounds to me like you were smack dab in the middle of this process.
I had it a few years ago with a 95 brunello. There was nothing there. We just opened the same bottle recently and it was wonderful.
The way that I judge a bottle without opening it is I look at spectator and their suggestions for length in bottle. If they tell me I can hold the bottle until 2008, I will not open it before 2007.
It's not a perfect system but it has worked for me up until now.
Drink it early or late. Skip the middle.
- Drew - 02-22-2006
Here's a description that I saved a while ago off the net which I think captures the full meaning of "dumb".
A wine tasting term to mean a wine that is not showing up to its potential. Dumb in this context refers not to intelligence but inability to speak. While trying to avoid words that are anthropomorphic, this one seems particularly well suited.
Characteristic description of a young wine with yet-to-develop aromas and flavours. A synonym for "closed-in". Named so because it seems "unable to speak.
Drew
- wdonovan - 02-22-2006
Cool. Thanks all. This juice wasn't just mute, it was downright stupid. I wished I'd opened something half the price and tasty. The other one stays on the shelf 'til I regain its trust.
One last question..... Because I had one dopey bottle, does that mean that there's a good chance that the other one could be just as ignorant or...... is this just a one in a thousand phenomenon?
- WileECoyote - 02-22-2006
You won't know until you have popped it. Any wine that has preoccupied your time and has aroused your curiosities such as this deserves a second chance; this time, taste it solo. Give it a fair taste.
[This message has been edited by WileECoyote (edited 02-22-2006).]
- wdonovan - 02-24-2006
Thanks, Wile. I didn't really phrase my last question accurately. I know that, bottom line, you must taste to ascertain. I meant more along the lines of "Is this dumb phase something that strikes one odd bottle at a time or does it normally affect a significant part of an entire vintage simultaneously?"
- WileECoyote - 02-24-2006
dumb; dumb phase
Though the term dumb is sometimes used as a synonym for CLOSED, it really has a more complex meaning. The dumb phase of a wine (generally red) is that period of transition from its youth to maturity. Shortly after bottling, a wine may be luscious, with rich, ripe aromas and flavors. However, after a certain period of time (usually several months), such a wine may begin to close down-the fruit begins to decrease before the complexities of maturity have fully developed. The combination of declining fruit and pre-emergent complexity cancel each other out, creating a wine that simply doesn't taste very good. VINTNERS have no idea what causes this phenomenon but do agree that the time frame for this dumb phase, which can last for several years, is completely unpredictable. The dumb phase of a wine is also referred to as the flat spot or the awkward, transformational, or adolescent phase.
Source:http://www.epicurious.com/drinking/wine_dictionary/entry?id=6295
- Thomas - 02-24-2006
As you all must be able to see by now--the words "dumb phase" used in this context are not much help.
My problem is that not having tasted the wine, I am not sure I fully grasp donovan's description, so I wouldn't know if this is a dumb phase or a technical flaw, which is not the same thing at all. But if it is either or both, it could and maybe could not affect every bottle. How's that for certitude!