Have you ever heard of a wine having tasting notes of brioche? It seems like a bit of a weird thing to find in your wine. I mean bread is delicious, but is it something you want to find in your wine glass? Well, I am here to tell you that with the right kind of wine, you really do. This wine tasting note may sound a little odd, but it is seriously delicious. So what is brioche in wine? In this wine terms explained, we dive into everything you need to know about this wine term so you can get back to sipping your wine!
Brioche is a butter-rich bun that’s a staple at many French breakfast tables. It’s a fluffy bread enriched with bread and often has a touch of sweetness if made with cream and sugar. Sound tasty? Yep, I am already getting hungry!
What is brioche in wine?
So now that you know what brioche tastes like, how does it taste in wine? As a tasting note, it has three components: butter, yeast and a hint of pastry sweetness. It sits alongside secondary notes (learn more about these here) in your wine like honey or vanilla that go beyond fruit.
Brioche in wine often comes along with other notes such as buttery, creamy, toasty and yeasty. Sounds pretty delicious to me!
What creates brioche in wine?
So now that you know what it is, what creates those flavours? Well, this is all part of a process called autolysis. Winemakers add yeast to the grape juice to start the alcoholic fermentation. The yeast eats the sugar and creates the wine we love. However, the byproduct of this is dead yeast cells that settle at the bottom of the fermentation vessel (stainless steel or oak usually) and become lees. If you want to learn more about this, read this article.
Winemakers can do a few things with these lees. If they don’t want them to impart flavours into the wine, they’ll remove them. However, when stirred up during maturation, the lees react with the wine and create additional notes such as pastry, bread and brioche!
So brioche in wine comes from a decision by a winemaker to mix the lees in with the wine. Rather than fruit characteristics in wine, these notes are added after the grapes are picked. So whether or not they are present in the wine is a choice.
Where do you find it?
Interested in trying wine with brioche characters? These notes are usually only present in white wines and are only suitable for certain types of versatile white grapes. Here is a couple to look out for:
- The most common place to find brioche is in Sparkling wines, including Champagne. Generally, sparkling wines made using the traditional method will be where you find these notes, including Sparkling Wine from countries like Australia and Cava from Spain
- Chardonnay – Chardonnay that is oaked is able to retain its base aromas and flavours through the autolytic process and these notes add body and flavour
- Aged Semillon
- Other oaked white wines
In summary: Brioche in wine
Brioche is a great tasting note to find in your wine when it is paired with a versatile white. It can add beautiful body and complexity to primary fruit characteristics. Especially popular in Sparkling wine and Chardonnay, this note is one that the winemaker decides to add to the wine after fermentation. So next time you’re sipping on some traditional method Sparkling or oaked Chardonnay, see if you can taste brioche!