“When you are in Rome, act like the Romans do.’ This holds true not only when you are in Rome, but in every other setting or place. You want to make sure that you blend into the crowd and understand their lingo. For wine lovers, whether you are an expert or a newbie, only one thing differentiates you from the pack. That is how well you understand the wine tasting lingo. If you are excited about the Winery Tours of Niagara, then you want to make sure that you are caught up with all the terms that may get thrown around during the next wine tasting event.
Irrespective of your personal favorites, red, white, ice wine, or sparkling wine, the following terms are common across the board and can save you the embarrassment of ignorance.
Strap up and learn some of the new terms to use on your next wine tasting event.
The Terms You Need To Know
If you have ever come across a wine expert and connoisseur giving a wine description, chances are that you may be lost and a little intimidated. This is mainly because for wines, there are several adjectives that can come into play to make the wine tasting experience a little more sophisticated.
While you do not need to own a dictionary of terms, there are a handful of these terms that are commonly used and make for the best foundation, especially as a new entrant into the wine tasting community.
Below Are Some Of The Terms That Are Guaranteed To Help You Feel Right At Home With Expert Wine Tasters.
- Aroma
Wine tasting involves the use of all your senses. By channeling your senses, both individually and collectively, you are bound to experience the best possible feel of each wine. A feeling that transcends just the taste. With aroma, your sense of smell is peaked. Your olfactory senses play an important part of the tasting experience and process. Similar to food, each wine has a unique and distinct aroma which it gives off, this aroma gives a hint of what the wine is expected to taste like.
Once offered a glass of wine, the first thing you want to do is to take a whiff of the wine, engaging your sense of smell and letting it stimulate your sense of taste. Your nose should be able to supply you with just the information you desire about the wine’s aroma.
From the aroma, it may be possible that you can tell what the wine is made from . You may come across terms like earthy, fruity, floral, cedary, oaky, smoky, buttery, perfumed, or meaty as a description for the perceived aroma.
You may also come across some less common terms such as bouquet, which indicates the smell of a complex and fully developed wine. A wind with an aromatic aroma can also be deemed to be a young one that is yet to be matured.
- Legs
If you are familiar with wine tasters, then you will know that following a whiff, more often than not, they proceed to shake slowly or swirl the wine in the glass. This is done so the taster can study how the wine settles back into the glass. Some wines leave ‘legs’ also known as ‘tears’ along the side of the glass after it has been swirled around.
The legs are used to determine the alcohol content. The faster the wine settles or the thicker the legs, the lower the alcohol content while a slow settling wine with fatter legs is regarded to have high alcohol content.
Swirling of the wine is also done for aeration purposes, that is, allowing air into the wine to bring out its aroma.
- Body
The body is a term that is used to describe the fullness and weight of the wine. The wine’s viscosity lends insight into the alcohol content of the wine.
- Texture
The texture is also used as a common term in wine tasting and wine description. The texture of the wine, however, depends on the taster as it is a more elusive term. The texture of the wine refers to how the wine feels in the mouth. Some of the common descriptions with regards to wine texture include coarse, fleshy, harsh, supple, round, aggressive, and velvety.
Terms like round, grip, velvety, and supple are positive indicators while harsh, coarse, aggressive and other forms indicate a negative texture.
- Sweet
The fermentation process is expected to help the wine mature, converting the sugar in the grapes into alcohol. However, for sweet-tasting wines, a percentage of unfermented grapes is still present thus contributing to the sweet taste.
Sweet wines are described as dessert wines and this is because they can contain as much as 21-72 sugar calories per glass of wine.
- Dry
When a wine has no noticeable taste of sugar, then it can be considered being dry. However, in some cases, a wine may taste like fruit but taste the opposite.
- Finish
The wine finish is what you taste after the wine has left your mouth. Whether you are drinking, tasting, or sipping the wine, the flavor of the wine in your mouth describes the finish. In some cases, the finish can be smooth, smoky, fruity, sweet, or tart. Generally, a wine with a long finish is rated higher than one with a shorter finish.
