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Speak Wine
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Step 3:
Taste the wine
When the wine is in your mouth, more than one flavor may become apparent. After the wine leaves your mouth, additional tastes may surface (no kidding!). Here's a simple chart which may give you an idea of the directions a wine can take as it tiptoes through your tastebuds.- Acrid describes a wine with overly pronounced acidity. This is often apparent in cheap red wines.
- Body is a term that covers a lot of ground. It generally describes how "full" a wine is, or how much flavor is apparent.
- Buttery is associated with some white wines, notably California Chardonnays. It refers to both flavor and texture or "mouthfeel."
- Complex is used to describe a wine that has a number of discernable characteristics (generally good ones), rather than one or two. Good wines that have aged well will be complex wine.
- Dry is used to describe a wine that is not sweet.
- Earthy describes a wine that tastes of the soil in which it was grown. Red wines most often have this characteristic.
- Finish is a synonym for aftertaste, used to describe the characteristics of a wine that remain after the wine has left your mouth.
- Flat indicates a wine that does not have enough acidic qualities. A synonym for uninteresting.
- Hard is generally used to describe a young wine that has a lot of tannins.
- Jammy is used for a red wine that has the taste of dense ripe fruit. A wine can become overly jammy when not balanced by good tannin levels.
- Neutral is generally used to describe a wine without any outstanding characteristics, but with no particular bad ones, either.
- Nutty refers to a wine with an oxidized character--one that has had exposure to air. This can be a good thing in smaller quantities, but too much oxidation will make a wine taste like sherry when it isn't.
- Oaky is used for a wine that has a noticable taste of the oak barrel in which it was stored. This term can be used in both a positive
and negative context.
- Plummy is used to describe with an overipe quality. Grapes that have been left on the vine too long can produce overipe tastes.
- Rough usually describes a poorly made wine, one that has a raw quality to it--although it can also refer to a quality wine that happens to be immature.
- Round describes a wine that has a good balance of fruit and tannins, with good body as well.
- Simple is used to describe a wine that has few characteristics which follow the initial impression. Not necessarily a disparaging term, it's often used to describe inexpensive, young wine.
- Strawberry is used mostly with blush,and nouveau wines. It denotes a very fruity, tangy taste.
- Supple describes a wine with well-balanced tannins and fruit characteristics.
- Toasty is often used to describe a white wine with a nice hint of the wooden barrel in which the wine was stored. Sweeter wines are rarely described this way.
- Vinegary is used for a wine that has the excessive acidic qualities that indicate it has turned to vinegar. This generally occurs through cork failure, which exposes the wine to air, exposure to excessive heat while in storage, or excessive aging of the wine.
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