The 'unnatural' flavour of cheap red wine?

From Tony Brock:

Something has been puzzling me for a while now and a lot of Internet research has not provided me with a clear answer.

What troubles me in fact is the distinctive 'flavour' one often gets from 'cheap' red wines. More 'classy' wines seem to have that classic balance of tannins etc. Many cheaper wines though seem to have surprisingly little tannin and a surprising degree of smoothness. These 'cheap' wines also often have a common and distinctive nose and flavour that I can't quite describe. It seems a bit like acetone? The first trip to the urinal in the morning also has a very distinctive 'nose' only found after drinking 'cheap' wines the night before. This 'nose' is a bit like acetone. This could be the natural by-product of the fermentation process but I strongly suspect that something is being added to the wine during production. 'Classic' reds very rarely produce this effect.

I am pretty convinced that this distinctive flavour does not come naturally and comes from some additive - not necessarily illegal or harmful - but I would really like to know what it is. Before I go off and spend a lot of money having various samples tested, I'd be really pleased if you could shed some light on this mystery first.

I'm wondering if it's not glycerol being added? ie: to add a bit of sweetness and smoothness?
I suppose through this I would also like to keep the industry 'sweet'.

Well, glycerol would be illegal but I don't think what Tony is describing derives from any artificial additives. The distinctive nose and flavour he refers to might result from the speed with which the wine goes through the process from vine to bottle. With a short time on the skins - just enough to extract sufficient colour and flavour - and no pressings used there would be few tannins, while the sweetness may result from some residual sugar deliberately being left in the wine - typical at the cheaper end. His reference to acetone suggests to me a rawness of youth that would result from the speedy vinification and bottling. This would fit with the cheaper red wine ethos - into the bottle and out into the market asap.

From Emile Joubert:
Praise the Lord for someone like Tony who subscribes to the theory that post vino evenings deliver startling results when visiting the urinal the morning after. I have personally never had the guts to comment on this method of analysing wines consumed and hope that this insightful way of analysing wine will be given the appreciation it deserves. I mean, I cried on New Year's day whilst emitting the last streams following my final bottle of Paul Sauer 1998. In any event, with regards to this cheap red wine Tony has been pissing away, so to speak, why does he not send a sample to the Wine and Spirits Board? I am sure he could pass it off as a 2005 sauvignon blanc, to my mind one of the worst sb vintages in history.

From Dave Ingram:
On this topic I am sure that someone else must have smelt the inevitable young wood nose the morning after a good wine expo, eg Winex. Where all the wines seem to have a dash too much young tannin which will only affect us mere mortals who do not spit. I have smelt acetone on young wines, but predominantly they are Pinotage, not the next day though. Whereas poorly made merlot often has a bitter aftertaste. [Aftertaste? a problematical reference in this context, I'd have thought – unless one has taken some tips from Ghandi who took regular cupfuls of his own urine to purify his soul — TJ]

From a reader who wishes to remain anonymous:
This is not red wine, but does relate to a 'bouquet' at the urinal. I once picked up a smell of asparagus the morning after, and then could not remember eating the stuff the night before. The wine I had was from one of the most highly regarded Sauvignon Blanc producers in the country, and the winemaker is very outspoken about the use of additives. Food for thought!

• From Andras Salamon (getting back to the main point!)
Most cheaper reds in South Africa appear to have some degree of carbonic maceration: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbonic_maceration. This is usually associated with lower tannins, distinctive "artificial" chemical aromas (often described as similar to "tutti-frutti" flavouring), and the smooth mouthfeel. The Oxford Companion refers to 'benzaldehyde, vinylbenzene, ethyl vanillate, and methyl vanillate, and, especially, ethyl cinnamate' as possibly causing the distinctive aromas of wine produced using carbonic maceration.

So it is quite possible that the wine appears 'artificial', through perfectly natural means. A way to test this would be to sample a freshly bottled sample that explicitly claimed to be produced using carbonic maceration, such as a Nouveau style wine.

From Taylor vannie Kaap (unlikely name that, but it's an unlikely topic...)
Gentlemen, (I saw no contribution from a lady on this subject, thank goodness), as a long-time guzzler of cheap red wine I consider myself qualified to comment.  The post-consumption urinary bouquet is a known phenomenon, and I have read a learned article in the New Scientist discussing it. For me, asparagus results in a particularly pungent odour, as does Castle draught, and I avoid them both for that reason. It appears the odour is a result of an individual's biochemistry interacting with some chemical present in the product, and hence reactions are not consistent. One man's meat, as they say....