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

Learning How to Taste Wine is really pretty easy. It’s really all about the S’s!

Let’s get started by filling your favorite wine glass about 1/3 full with any wine on hand.

S1. Swirl

Leave the glass setting on the table and hold by the stem. Gently swirl the glass until the wine begins to go around the glass. Five or Six times around are fine. This is done because wine tastes better when a little air is mixed in with it. It actually intensifies the flavors. Secondly, it creates a little friction, then a little heat, and then finally a little evaporation. The scent of the wine flows through the nasal passages and you get the best of both worlds, flavor and aroma.

S2. Sniff

If you had the good fortune to be born with a giant honker or a monstrous schnoz, you were born to be a wine taster! 90% of the taste of wine is determined through your nose.

For most people this is the area that creates the most confusion. When you are starting out and trying to smell the aroma of wine and hear another taster say: I get hints of yadda, yadda, yadda, you think to yourself, it smells like red to me. Right? That’s OK. Recognizing the aromas is really something that takes a little while to get. We’ll touch on this more in future episodes. But for now, I just want you to know the process.

S3. Sip

If we have to talk a lot about this one. We’re in trouble. Take enough to coat your mouth

S4. Swish

Gently move the wine around you mouth. Taste buds are different in different areas of your tongue. For instance, sweets are at the tip. Sour is on the top and salty is on the sides. Moving the wine around allows you to get the full range of flavor from your wine.

S5. Swallow

Known as the big finish! It’s literally the taste that wines gives you as it rolls down the back of your throat as you swallow. You get a “Turbo Boost” of flavor as the acidity of the wine, touches the nerve endings in your throat, giving you a tingling sensation.

The question of the week asks what is the right temperature for wine?

The idea temperature is to serve whites about 55 degrees. Most people drink their wine way too cold. Your refrigerator is about 40 degrees, perfect for soft drinks and beer, but way too cold for wine. The cold will literally slow down the flavor molecules and cause the wine to lose most of its taste

Red wines are actually better is served slightly chilled. Say about 64-65 degrees. The old saying about room temperature comes from a few hundred years ago when the French chateaus walls were a couple of feet thick. Room temperature back then was mid sixties. Today, most people think room temperature is about 72 degrees. If you like it at 72 then by all means drink it at 72. But just for kicks and giggles try it slightly chilled and see what you think.

Wine of the Week – Riesling
*Great first white wine to try. This is the only white that many people like.
*Typical flavors of green apple and citrus
*Usually comes in a blue bottle
*Originally from Germany, popular production areas include Oregon and Washington
*Two distinct versions, one is pretty sweet and easy to drink, the other is much drier, more acidic and great as a food wine

So thanks for watching, let me know your thoughts on the show and remember to sign up for show updates.

Cheers!
Mark Adams