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Tasting Primer
Tasting Primer "basic tasting terminology that helps you accurately describe a wine"
Tasting wine is a challenge. In fact, I’ve learned that tasting nearly anything and being able to break down and vocalize exactly what anything tastes like is a challenge. You might like one chef’s risotto more than another but when asked why, it could be a challenge to answer. Did that chef use a different stock, oil, butter, grain rice or seasonings? Unless you’ve practiced tasting different risotto’s it might be a big challenge to answer any of this without knowing the recipe. Yet, when we taste beverages and attempt to describe them, we are essentially doing just that. But fear not, there are some basics that help us describe a wine when we taste:
· Physical – These describe how your palette physically reacts to a wine.
o Sweet – Grape juice is sweet. Wine is made when yeasts consume the sugar in grape juice and produce alcohol and CO2. Sometimes wines have residual sugar left in them when fermentation stops before the yeast consumes all the sugar. There are a number of reasons for this but if this has occurred and you can taste sweetness, these wines are sweet (or off-dry if it’s lightly sweet). If there is no perceptible sugar, the wine is said to be dry.
o Sour – Think lemon juice, that’s citric acid and it’s really sour. Grapes have other acids in them. The two most encountered in wines are Malic and Lactic. They are less harsh than citric acid but if you pay attention to how your mouth reacts to lemon juice, you’ll soon be able to identify how your mouth reacts to acid. In short, it makes you salivate and when this, the natural reaction is to make “puckering” or “clicking” sounds and try to swallow the saliva. Sometimes it’s easier to identify when you are tasting a wine with others. Pay attention to what others are doing right after they taste the wine. Are they licking their lips and making “smacking” sounds? If yes, the wine is acidic.
o Salty – Generally not an actual taste in wine, although wines made near the sea or ocean can often have a sense of brininess, this is more an aroma than it is actual salt in the wine.
o Bitter – felt at the back of the tongue. Bitter is a flavor that is also not often encountered in wines. If you want to know this flavor, simply try a couple drops of angostura bitters or burn your toast the next time you make it. Bitter is not a flavor loved by many people.
o Tannic – This is an often misunderstood or mixed up term. If a wine is tannic, it dries your mouth out. This does not mean that the wine is dry however. As discussed in the sweetness category, dry is the absence of perceptible sugar. To taste tannin, buy some seeded grapes at the grocery store. Eat one and chomp into the seeds themselves and really get it on your palette. Your mouth will feel like it’s drying out, particularly in front of your gums. Over-steeped tea has this same effect.
o Body – is the wine very rich and mouth coating or is it light in body? Think of cream versus skim milk to give you an idea.
· Perceived – These are more the aromatics of the wine. More than 60 precent of what you taste is based on your sense of smell (pinching your nose was always a great way to eat something you didn’t like, remember?) Because this is a large category of descriptors, I find it useful to break it down into categories that help me focus my senses. I try to only name tastes that I know well (I’ve not eaten or smelled too many gooseberries in my time, so I tend to leave them out of my descriptions).
o Pomaceous Fruit (sometimes called tree fruit, but since most of these fruits grow on trees, I tend to not like the title tree fruit): Apples (Green or Yellow) or Pears
o Red Berries or Dark Berries (is it more Strawberries, Cranberries and Raspberries or more in the Blueberry, Blackberry, Black Raspberry Category)
o Stone Fruit: Cherries (red or Black?), Apricots, Peaches or Nectarines
o Tropical Fruit: Bananas, Pineapple, Kiwi, Fruit Cup, Mango, Lychee
o Citrus: Orange, Lime, Grapefruit and Lemon
o Floral: Very Floral, Lightly Floral or Not Floral (if it doesn’t smell like flowers, stand up and say so!)
o Herbal: Grass, Thyme, Rosemary, Mint, Chervil
o Spices: Cinnamon, Cardamom, Cloves, Black Pepper
o Oak – Smells like Vanilla, Coconut and Banana
Using all this information, the following would be two good wine descriptions:
1. This is a white wine. It is highly acidic and therefore pretty sour but it is low in tannin. It is fairly light. It is dry (the opposite of sweet) and tastes like pomaceous fruit such as green apples as well as citrus fruit, mainly grapefruit. There is also an herbal quality like grass. It does not taste oaky.
2. This is a white wine. It is fairly acidic, low in tannin and dry. It is rich and palette coating. It smells like oak first and foremost and pomaceous fruit, mainly yellow and green apples secondly. It is not floral and in fact, I can’t smell or taste much else other than what I just described.
The first wine would be Sauvignon Blanc to me and the second would be a basic New World Chardonnay but that doesn’t even matter. What matters is that you were able to quickly and clearly describe the wine without getting terribly in depth or “flowery” in your description. Stick to the basics and you’ll see yourself becoming a very good taster.
Andy Chabot
Director of Food & Beverage Tasting Primer "basic tasting terminology that helps you accurately describe a wine"
Tasting wine is a challenge. In fact, I’ve learned that tasting nearly anything and being able to break down and vocalize exactly what anything tastes like is a challenge. You might like one chef’s risotto more than another but when asked why, it could be a challenge to answer. Did that chef use a different stock, oil, butter, grain rice or seasonings? Unless you’ve practiced tasting different risotto’s it might be a big challenge to answer any of this without knowing the recipe. Yet, when we taste beverages and attempt to describe them, we are essentially doing just that. But fear not, there are some basics that help us describe a wine when we taste:
· Physical – These describe how your palette physically reacts to a wine.
o Sweet – Grape juice is sweet. Wine is made when yeasts consume the sugar in grape juice and produce alcohol and CO2. Sometimes wines have residual sugar left in them when fermentation stops before the yeast consumes all the sugar. There are a number of reasons for this but if this has occurred and you can taste sweetness, these wines are sweet (or off-dry if it’s lightly sweet). If there is no perceptible sugar, the wine is said to be dry.
o Sour – Think lemon juice, that’s citric acid and it’s really sour. Grapes have other acids in them. The two most encountered in wines are Malic and Lactic. They are less harsh than citric acid but if you pay attention to how your mouth reacts to lemon juice, you’ll soon be able to identify how your mouth reacts to acid. In short, it makes you salivate and when this, the natural reaction is to make “puckering” or “clicking” sounds and try to swallow the saliva. Sometimes it’s easier to identify when you are tasting a wine with others. Pay attention to what others are doing right after they taste the wine. Are they licking their lips and making “smacking” sounds? If yes, the wine is acidic.
o Salty – Generally not an actual taste in wine, although wines made near the sea or ocean can often have a sense of brininess, this is more an aroma than it is actual salt in the wine.
o Bitter – felt at the back of the tongue. Bitter is a flavor that is also not often encountered in wines. If you want to know this flavor, simply try a couple drops of angostura bitters or burn your toast the next time you make it. Bitter is not a flavor loved by many people.
o Tannic – This is an often misunderstood or mixed up term. If a wine is tannic, it dries your mouth out. This does not mean that the wine is dry however. As discussed in the sweetness category, dry is the absence of perceptible sugar. To taste tannin, buy some seeded grapes at the grocery store. Eat one and chomp into the seeds themselves and really get it on your palette. Your mouth will feel like it’s drying out, particularly in front of your gums. Over-steeped tea has this same effect.
o Body – is the wine very rich and mouth coating or is it light in body? Think of cream versus skim milk to give you an idea.
· Perceived – These are more the aromatics of the wine. More than 60 precent of what you taste is based on your sense of smell (pinching your nose was always a great way to eat something you didn’t like, remember?) Because this is a large category of descriptors, I find it useful to break it down into categories that help me focus my senses. I try to only name tastes that I know well (I’ve not eaten or smelled too many gooseberries in my time, so I tend to leave them out of my descriptions).
o Pomaceous Fruit (sometimes called tree fruit, but since most of these fruits grow on trees, I tend to not like the title tree fruit): Apples (Green or Yellow) or Pears
o Red Berries or Dark Berries (is it more Strawberries, Cranberries and Raspberries or more in the Blueberry, Blackberry, Black Raspberry Category)
o Stone Fruit: Cherries (red or Black?), Apricots, Peaches or Nectarines
o Tropical Fruit: Bananas, Pineapple, Kiwi, Fruit Cup, Mango, Lychee
o Citrus: Orange, Lime, Grapefruit and Lemon
o Floral: Very Floral, Lightly Floral or Not Floral (if it doesn’t smell like flowers, stand up and say so!)
o Herbal: Grass, Thyme, Rosemary, Mint, Chervil
o Spices: Cinnamon, Cardamom, Cloves, Black Pepper
o Oak – Smells like Vanilla, Coconut and Banana
Using all this information, the following would be two good wine descriptions:
1. This is a white wine. It is highly acidic and therefore pretty sour but it is low in tannin. It is fairly light. It is dry (the opposite of sweet) and tastes like pomaceous fruit such as green apples as well as citrus fruit, mainly grapefruit. There is also an herbal quality like grass. It does not taste oaky.
2. This is a white wine. It is fairly acidic, low in tannin and dry. It is rich and palette coating. It smells like oak first and foremost and pomaceous fruit, mainly yellow and green apples secondly. It is not floral and in fact, I can’t smell or taste much else other than what I just described.
The first wine would be Sauvignon Blanc to me and the second would be a basic New World Chardonnay but that doesn’t even matter. What matters is that you were able to quickly and clearly describe the wine without getting terribly in depth or “flowery” in your description. Stick to the basics and you’ll see yourself becoming a very good taster.
Andy Chabot
Director of Food & Beverage
Tasting wine is a challenge. In fact, I’ve learned that tasting nearly anything and being able to break down and vocalize exactly what anything tastes like is a challenge. You might like one chef’s risotto more than another but when asked why, it could be a challenge to answer. Did that chef use a different stock, oil, butter, grain rice or seasonings? Unless you’ve practiced tasting different risotto’s it might be a big challenge to answer any of this without knowing the recipe. Yet, when we taste beverages and attempt to describe them, we are essentially doing just that. But fear not, there are some basics that help us describe a wine when we taste:
· Physical – These describe how your palette physically reacts to a wine.
o Sweet – Grape juice is sweet. Wine is made when yeasts consume the sugar in grape juice and produce alcohol and CO2. Sometimes wines have residual sugar left in them when fermentation stops before the yeast consumes all the sugar. There are a number of reasons for this but if this has occurred and you can taste sweetness, these wines are sweet (or off-dry if it’s lightly sweet). If there is no perceptible sugar, the wine is said to be dry.
o Sour – Think lemon juice, that’s citric acid and it’s really sour. Grapes have other acids in them. The two most encountered in wines are Malic and Lactic. They are less harsh than citric acid but if you pay attention to how your mouth reacts to lemon juice, you’ll soon be able to identify how your mouth reacts to acid. In short, it makes you salivate and when this, the natural reaction is to make “puckering” or “clicking” sounds and try to swallow the saliva. Sometimes it’s easier to identify when you are tasting a wine with others. Pay attention to what others are doing right after they taste the wine. Are they licking their lips and making “smacking” sounds? If yes, the wine is acidic.
o Salty – Generally not an actual taste in wine, although wines made near the sea or ocean can often have a sense of brininess, this is more an aroma than it is actual salt in the wine.
o Bitter – felt at the back of the tongue. Bitter is a flavor that is also not often encountered in wines. If you want to know this flavor, simply try a couple drops of angostura bitters or burn your toast the next time you make it. Bitter is not a flavor loved by many people.
o Tannic – This is an often misunderstood or mixed up term. If a wine is tannic, it dries your mouth out. This does not mean that the wine is dry however. As discussed in the sweetness category, dry is the absence of perceptible sugar. To taste tannin, buy some seeded grapes at the grocery store. Eat one and chomp into the seeds themselves and really get it on your palette. Your mouth will feel like it’s drying out, particularly in front of your gums. Over-steeped tea has this same effect.
o Body – is the wine very rich and mouth coating or is it light in body? Think of cream versus skim milk to give you an idea.
· Perceived – These are more the aromatics of the wine. More than 60 precent of what you taste is based on your sense of smell (pinching your nose was always a great way to eat something you didn’t like, remember?) Because this is a large category of descriptors, I find it useful to break it down into categories that help me focus my senses. I try to only name tastes that I know well (I’ve not eaten or smelled too many gooseberries in my time, so I tend to leave them out of my descriptions).
o Pomaceous Fruit (sometimes called tree fruit, but since most of these fruits grow on trees, I tend to not like the title tree fruit): Apples (Green or Yellow) or Pears
o Red Berries or Dark Berries (is it more Strawberries, Cranberries and Raspberries or more in the Blueberry, Blackberry, Black Raspberry Category)
o Stone Fruit: Cherries (red or Black?), Apricots, Peaches or Nectarines
o Tropical Fruit: Bananas, Pineapple, Kiwi, Fruit Cup, Mango, Lychee
o Citrus: Orange, Lime, Grapefruit and Lemon
o Floral: Very Floral, Lightly Floral or Not Floral (if it doesn’t smell like flowers, stand up and say so!)
o Herbal: Grass, Thyme, Rosemary, Mint, Chervil
o Spices: Cinnamon, Cardamom, Cloves, Black Pepper
o Oak – Smells like Vanilla, Coconut and Banana
Using all this information, the following would be two good wine descriptions:
1. This is a white wine. It is highly acidic and therefore pretty sour but it is low in tannin. It is fairly light. It is dry (the opposite of sweet) and tastes like pomaceous fruit such as green apples as well as citrus fruit, mainly grapefruit. There is also an herbal quality like grass. It does not taste oaky.
2. This is a white wine. It is fairly acidic, low in tannin and dry. It is rich and palette coating. It smells like oak first and foremost and pomaceous fruit, mainly yellow and green apples secondly. It is not floral and in fact, I can’t smell or taste much else other than what I just described.
The first wine would be Sauvignon Blanc to me and the second would be a basic New World Chardonnay but that doesn’t even matter. What matters is that you were able to quickly and clearly describe the wine without getting terribly in depth or “flowery” in your description. Stick to the basics and you’ll see yourself becoming a very good taster.
Andy Chabot
Director of Food & Beverage Tasting Primer "basic tasting terminology that helps you accurately describe a wine"
Tasting wine is a challenge. In fact, I’ve learned that tasting nearly anything and being able to break down and vocalize exactly what anything tastes like is a challenge. You might like one chef’s risotto more than another but when asked why, it could be a challenge to answer. Did that chef use a different stock, oil, butter, grain rice or seasonings? Unless you’ve practiced tasting different risotto’s it might be a big challenge to answer any of this without knowing the recipe. Yet, when we taste beverages and attempt to describe them, we are essentially doing just that. But fear not, there are some basics that help us describe a wine when we taste:
· Physical – These describe how your palette physically reacts to a wine.
o Sweet – Grape juice is sweet. Wine is made when yeasts consume the sugar in grape juice and produce alcohol and CO2. Sometimes wines have residual sugar left in them when fermentation stops before the yeast consumes all the sugar. There are a number of reasons for this but if this has occurred and you can taste sweetness, these wines are sweet (or off-dry if it’s lightly sweet). If there is no perceptible sugar, the wine is said to be dry.
o Sour – Think lemon juice, that’s citric acid and it’s really sour. Grapes have other acids in them. The two most encountered in wines are Malic and Lactic. They are less harsh than citric acid but if you pay attention to how your mouth reacts to lemon juice, you’ll soon be able to identify how your mouth reacts to acid. In short, it makes you salivate and when this, the natural reaction is to make “puckering” or “clicking” sounds and try to swallow the saliva. Sometimes it’s easier to identify when you are tasting a wine with others. Pay attention to what others are doing right after they taste the wine. Are they licking their lips and making “smacking” sounds? If yes, the wine is acidic.
o Salty – Generally not an actual taste in wine, although wines made near the sea or ocean can often have a sense of brininess, this is more an aroma than it is actual salt in the wine.
o Bitter – felt at the back of the tongue. Bitter is a flavor that is also not often encountered in wines. If you want to know this flavor, simply try a couple drops of angostura bitters or burn your toast the next time you make it. Bitter is not a flavor loved by many people.
o Tannic – This is an often misunderstood or mixed up term. If a wine is tannic, it dries your mouth out. This does not mean that the wine is dry however. As discussed in the sweetness category, dry is the absence of perceptible sugar. To taste tannin, buy some seeded grapes at the grocery store. Eat one and chomp into the seeds themselves and really get it on your palette. Your mouth will feel like it’s drying out, particularly in front of your gums. Over-steeped tea has this same effect.
o Body – is the wine very rich and mouth coating or is it light in body? Think of cream versus skim milk to give you an idea.
· Perceived – These are more the aromatics of the wine. More than 60 precent of what you taste is based on your sense of smell (pinching your nose was always a great way to eat something you didn’t like, remember?) Because this is a large category of descriptors, I find it useful to break it down into categories that help me focus my senses. I try to only name tastes that I know well (I’ve not eaten or smelled too many gooseberries in my time, so I tend to leave them out of my descriptions).
o Pomaceous Fruit (sometimes called tree fruit, but since most of these fruits grow on trees, I tend to not like the title tree fruit): Apples (Green or Yellow) or Pears
o Red Berries or Dark Berries (is it more Strawberries, Cranberries and Raspberries or more in the Blueberry, Blackberry, Black Raspberry Category)
o Stone Fruit: Cherries (red or Black?), Apricots, Peaches or Nectarines
o Tropical Fruit: Bananas, Pineapple, Kiwi, Fruit Cup, Mango, Lychee
o Citrus: Orange, Lime, Grapefruit and Lemon
o Floral: Very Floral, Lightly Floral or Not Floral (if it doesn’t smell like flowers, stand up and say so!)
o Herbal: Grass, Thyme, Rosemary, Mint, Chervil
o Spices: Cinnamon, Cardamom, Cloves, Black Pepper
o Oak – Smells like Vanilla, Coconut and Banana
Using all this information, the following would be two good wine descriptions:
1. This is a white wine. It is highly acidic and therefore pretty sour but it is low in tannin. It is fairly light. It is dry (the opposite of sweet) and tastes like pomaceous fruit such as green apples as well as citrus fruit, mainly grapefruit. There is also an herbal quality like grass. It does not taste oaky.
2. This is a white wine. It is fairly acidic, low in tannin and dry. It is rich and palette coating. It smells like oak first and foremost and pomaceous fruit, mainly yellow and green apples secondly. It is not floral and in fact, I can’t smell or taste much else other than what I just described.
The first wine would be Sauvignon Blanc to me and the second would be a basic New World Chardonnay but that doesn’t even matter. What matters is that you were able to quickly and clearly describe the wine without getting terribly in depth or “flowery” in your description. Stick to the basics and you’ll see yourself becoming a very good taster.
Andy Chabot
Director of Food & Beverage