A creamy wine could be in part because of something called Malo-Lactic conversion. In Champagne, creamy is a favored characteristic that is associated with the famous bottles of bubbly…such as Krug. CREAMY Creamy is a popular description for white wines and sparkling wines fermented or aged in oak. As much as I love complex wines, using the word “complex” to describe a wine is a cop-out unless you go on to describe how it’s complex. COMPLEX A complex wine simply means that when you taste it, the flavor changes from the moment you taste it to the moment you swallow. This is a super positive and desirable characteristic that wine writers love to use when they find a wine they wish they could just slowly sip on a leather chair. CIGAR BOX Cigar box flavors are hinting toward sweetness and cedar-wood with an abundance of smoke. CHEWY TANNINS When you take a sip of wine with chewy tannins, it dries out the interior of your mouth so that you “chew” or clean the tannins out of the insides of your mouth. Charcoal is often associated with a similar characteristic: pencil lead (but less refined). Designed and printed in the USA.ĬHARCOAL A wine that is described as tasting like charcoal tastes gritty, it’s usually dry (with higher tannins) and has this rustic flavor. Homework assignment: try a black currant and report back.ġ20 common wine terms organized by basic wine characteristics including acidity, tannin and fruit level. When writers mention cassis, they are often thinking of the seedy and gritty character of actual black currants. CASSIS The least fruit-like of all dark fruits. A buttery wine often has a cream-like texture that hits the middle of your tongue almost like oil (or butter) and has a smooth finish. GO TO ACIDITY BUTTERY A wine with buttery characteristics has been aged in oak and generally is rich and flat (less Acidity). BRIGHT Bright wines are higher in acidity and make your mouth water. A big wine is not necessarily a fruit-forward wine, it can also mean that it has big tannins. BIG Big describes a wine with massive flavor in your mouth that takes up all sections of your mouth and tongue. It’s never used anymore describing a wine, unless the wine writer is attempting to dig that wine an early grave. BARNYARD This means the wine smells like poo. An austere wine is not fruit-forward nor opulent. It usually means the wine has very high acidity and very little fruit flavors. It hits your mouth and then turns it inside out. It’s like getting punched in the arm in the same place over and over again. ANGULAR An angular wine is like putting a triangle in your mouth – it hits you in specific places with high impact and not elsewhere. White wines are often described with characteristics similar to lemon or lime juice. Red wines have more tart fruit characteristics (versus “sweet fruit”). We rarely write about wine… unless it’s kickass! ( or so bad that we can’t help ourselves) Wine Descriptions Glossary ACIDITY Wines with high acidity taste tart and zesty. Below is a list of common wine descriptions and what they actually mean. Wine writing is a business and its job is to SELL wine, not to be honest or accurate. How do you buy wine when you don’t know what it tastes like? A lot of folks (including me) rely on reading wine descriptions to get an idea of what a wine will taste like.
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