We could easily list more than five elements, (I’m sure one could argue about color, alcohol, phenolic compounds, yeast, and a hundred other things) but when we taste a wine we want to evaluate, these are the things to keep in mind and in your tasting notes. And on that subject, buy a cheap notebook (it’ll get stained if you do it right) and try to write a bit about every great wine you taste. You can even list the following five elements on each page to help you to focus on the basics.
After each “element”, we’ve included a number of descriptors to highlight what you might taste in a wine. They are listed in order of “strong” to “weak”. The more wines you taste, the easier this process becomes. If you’ve only drunk $10 Chardonnay, it will be difficult to know how intense that varietal can become. Be easy on yourself, and try to taste a wine and apply a few of these terms to it. Before you know it, the terms will start rolling off your tongue and you’ll become comfortable (perhaps even confident) in tasting, evaluating, and describing the wines you taste. You can even take one descriptor term from each of the five elements to make a complete description of a wine. Remember: many of these elements can be evaluated by the nose as well as by the mouth. Be careful though, some wines taste better than they smell and vice-versa.
FRUIT: Fruit in a wine is easy to describe. Some wines smell like blackberries, or cherries or unripe strawberries. This is a good way to start describing the wine. Fruity wines are not necessarily sweet, though. It’s the aroma that matters, so pay special attention to your nose while you sniff and sip. Generally, wine critics talk about fruit in a wine to describe how well a wine is drinking during the process of bottle aging. As a wine ages, the vibrant fruit odors and tastes become more and more subdued, turning earthy; plums and berries turn to prune and dried floral smells, and when the fruit is no longer evident or palatable, the wine is considered too old for optimal enjoyment. It’s probably better to drink a wine too early than to drink it too late.
Descriptive Terms: Jammy, fruity, good fruit, aged or dried fruits, no fruit. It’s also common to use specific fruits to describe the smells and tastes of wine: blackberry, apple, grapefruit, etc.
INTENSITY: Intensity in a wine is a bit more difficult to describe until you’ve trained your mouth to pick it up. If you put some wine in your mouth and swish it around, intensity can be felt in the middle of your palate (mouth)—like a rising burst of acidity and flavor—it’s where balance meets flavor, great farming, and competent winemaking. Originating in the quality of the fruit used to produce the wine, intensity comes from good farming, low yields in the vineyard, balanced vines, and excellent winemaking practices. To us, intensity is the single greatest indicator of a special wine. Flavor can be tasted in any wine, but intensity is more rare, even in some expensive bottles.
Descriptive Terms: Massive or great intensity, good intensity, intense, flavorful, simple, dilute, or watery.
COMPLEXITY: Complexity means there’s a lot going on in your mouth. Some wines have more “tastable” or “smellable” components to them: the more going on in the wine, the more complex it is. If the wine reeks of blackberries, it might be a great wine, but it’s not very complex. If, with the blackberry scent, you also smell French oak (or vanilla), dried spice, cedar, a nuance of black olive, and a hint of tobacco—that’s complexity. Complexity is often a matter of blending fruit, a balanced hit of new oak from barrels, and some special flavor imparted by the soil and the climate. Using the word “complex” to describe a wine is a common cop-out for not knowing how to describe all the things going on that make a wine great.
Descriptive Terms: Highly or very complex, complex, interesting or harmonious elements, simple, uninteresting.
ACID: Acid is as important in wine as any element. Every popular beverage has some acid in it, whether it is carbonic acid, as in Coca-Cola, or citric acid as in orange or grapefruit juice. The cooler the climate and the earlier the grapes are picked, the higher the acid content in wine. The trick is getting the grapes really ripe while maintaining enough acid to give the wine structure or backbone. Wine without acid tastes flat and gives no refreshing, palate-cleansing zippiness like many foods require. Generally, white wines have more acid than reds. Acid can be detected along the sides of the tongue. A great way to teach yourself how to taste acid is to add some extra citric acid (easily found and purchased) to a glass of wine, and tast it side by side with unaltered wine. You’ll quickly discern the difference, and your tongue and brain will remember.
Descriptive Terms: Overly acidic, tart, zippy, lean, good structure, balanced, moderate acidity, round, fat, flabby, flat.
FINISH: The finish of a wine is simply the flavors left in your mouth after you swallow. Great red wines often leave an impression of some wonderful flavor or intensity for many seconds, even a minute in a truly stellar vintage. In drinking white wines, we prefer a cleaner finish: good acid and maybe a hint of mineral or toasty oak if it’s in balance with the other elements of the wine. There are also descriptors that describe the alcohol content of a wine. A hot feeling in the throat generally means a high-alcohol wine. Many dessert wines have sweet finishes that hint of ripe fruit but finish with a zippy and refreshing acidity. Wines that are too old or that have oxidized will often have chalky, astringent, or cooked-fruit flavors in the finish—all of which are considered unacceptable.
Descriptive terms: Here are examples of four types of finishes: clean, lingering (good flavors), lingering (bad or off flavors), and downright unpalatable.
LET’S PUT IT ALL TOGETHER
So now you’ve read this article twice, tried to put some of the terms into your brain with practice or brow furrowing, and you’re ready for the final exam.
You and a friend head to a nice restaurant for dinner, bring a bottle of 2013 Pinot Gris from Sumner Vineyards (shameless plug) and after a taste is poured, you compare notes. Choose a single descriptor of the wine. Maybe it has nice fruit or good intensity. Perhaps a comment about the wonderful lingering finish is appropriate. You are now armed and dangerous in the wine world: you know what you like, you know how to describe it, and now you can forget everything you’ve learned and drink wine like a professional!
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