Appears in
Oxford Companion to Wine

By Jancis Robinson

Published 2006

  • About

Dekkera, the sporulating form of the yeast genus brettanomyces which can cause two distinct off-flavours in wines, often described as ‘mousy’, and ‘animal’ or ‘medicinal’. Like Brettanomyces, Dekkera has variable sensitivity to sulfur dioxide. In practice, Dekkera is used as a European, particularly French, synonym for Brettanomyces, but recent changes to the rules for naming fungi suggest precedence be given to Brettanomyces.