Green Cabernet

Winter, Erika. (2004, May/June). Avoiding "green" characters in Cabernet Sauvignon. Practical Winery and Vineyard, pp 9-12.

Cabernet sauvignon has a tendency to produce strong green herbaceous characters on occasion.

These characters can be produced by methoxypyrazine (green pepper type herbaceous), unripe monomeric phenolics (mainly bitter herbaceous) or polyunsaturated fatty acid derivatives such as hexanal and hexenal (hay type herbaceous).

The paper discusses each of these groups of compounds.

The following strategies to avoid high methoxypyrazine levels at harvest are:

Avoiding having too little or too much soil moisture between veraison and harvest
Ensure adequate sun exposure of bunches through adequate vine balance
Remove leaves shading clusters well before veraison
Ensure ripe seeds at harvest
Avoid leaves and stems in the fermenting must

Methoxypyrazine decline after veraison follows the decline in malic acid.

Phenolic maturity can be enhanced by:

Avoiding extremes of water availability before and after veraison
Ensure good vine balance
Ensure berry temperatures between 15 and 35° C for as many hours of the day and are as many days as possible during the year.

References