Understanding Those Crazy Wine Words

Vintage

The year the grapes were harvested.  In the northern hemisphere harvest is in the fall.  In the southern hemisphere, the harvest is in the spring.

Sweet

I usually don’t try and tell someone whether a wine is sweet or not because its so subjective.  All I can tell you is you have to taste enough wines for you to establish a baseline of what is “sweet” to you.

Dry

Dry is like the term sweet and is very subjective.  Usually, the drier the wine, the more your mouth will pucker.  This is caused by tannins.

Tannin

Tannins are all throughout the leaves, the vine, but primarily the skins of the grape.  They are bitter and they don’t taste good.  When you hear that wine has to be aged, it’s because of tannins.  What starts out as something very bitter, over time chemically breaks down, changes from bitter to a very smooth taste and gives the wine a different flavor.  But for our purposes, all you really need to know is that tannins are what cause your mouth to pucker.

Acidity

Well in reality, acidity in wine is what your taste buds recognize as sour.  The sour balances off the sweetness and dryness of wines.  Acidity is what gives wine its “bite”

Body

Body of wine refers to the weight of wine or how heavy it feels on your tongue.  Think of water as you baseline.  Alcohol is more dense than water so it is heaver.  So usually the more alcohol the heavier body the wine.  .

Finish

It’s simply how a wine tastes on the back of your throat.

Complex

Wines that have several flavors and aromas.  You can detect the sweetness, the dryness, the acidity, the fruit and any other flavors like spice.

Well Balanced

Wines that are complex, but the flavors and aromas are in perfect proportion

Question of the week

Charlie Smith writes in and asks, Mark, I would like to visit several wineries in my area.  What should I expect to see and do?

Typically you will go the tasting room and be offered 4-5 samples for either a nominal cost or sometimes even free.  Realize the samples are about 1 ounce. 

Usually the tasting is followed by a tour.  Most people choose to buy several bottles after a tasting. 

 Heres the skinny on Pinot Grigio:

Pinot Grigio/Pinot Gris

For one sip of wine…same grape or not??  Actually, yes.  For two sips of wine…same flavor and style or not??  Actually, no.  The grape is technically called pinot gris (gris means grey but the wine is really gold but is called white) Still with me?  It is grown and fermented throughout the world.  Most winemakers believe and logic would suggest that somewhere some bored winemaker grafted parts of the pinot noir (red grape) onto some other form of white vine to create pinot gris.  Kinda of confusing.  Its called pinot gris throughout the world except in Italy.  There it’s called pinot grigio.  

Cheers!

Mark Adams