Wine Tastes & Flavors
I have casual conversations about wine near daily. I have noticed that the words taste and flavor are used interchangeably. However, the dictionary definitions show important differences.
Taste: is the perception stimulated when a substance in the mouth reacts chemically with taste receptor cells on the tongue. The five basic tastes are bitter, sweet, sour, salty, and umami.
Flavor: comes from aroma compounds, also called stereoisomers, that are released during fermentation, can change during time in barrel or bottle. Flavor also includes the combination of taste and aromas, and can reference other descriptors like spice, heat and texture. Our brain can take certain traits of a drink and associate it with the drink’s identity. Our brains often have multiple responses to one stereoisomer. For example, Gewurtzraminer contains cis-rose oxide, and the brain can interpret that as rose or lychee.
I will use my mother-in-law as an example. It was hard for me to dial in to her wine preferences. She is super perceptive with wine and often has immediate reactions (good and bad) to what I serve her. She used to mention that she just didn’t like a wine or loves the wine. But, in the name of science, I forced both of us to dig a little deeper into what specifically she liked or disliked about a wine. It’s extremely difficult for most people to break down complex flavors and put them into words. I’ll often ask “what do you like or dislike”, take another sip and assess what’s going on with your tongue – is it tingling in the front or back, are your cheeks drying, is your mouth watering? These are all questions I understand to assess taste. It turns out, after years of this exercise, my mother-in-law is both sensitive to high acid and high tannin wines. When I assess flavor, I often ask her if she can identify any fruit flavors in wine. She loves wines that are “riper” in flavor so in white wines, she likes the perceptible notes of pineapple and ripe peaches versus citrus fruits like lemon and lime. In red wines, she likes riper red fruits. It was a doozey of an experiment, but I have officially won the “daughter-in-law of the year award” because I am now armed with information to always serve her a great wine!
I am sure many of you don’t have a sommelier sitting around to help dial in your taste, so you’re probably wondering whether there’s a way to help yourself choose more appealing wines (other than sending me a text – which I always and happily respond to).
I am outlining some ways to identify and then appropriately communicate your wine preferences, but please note that these are generalizations:
For red wines, fruit flavors generally fall into “black fruit” or “red fruit”
If you like blackberry, blueberry, jam, prune, raisin, try to order a Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Tempranillo, Syrah
If you like cranberry, pomegranate, raspberry, cherry, strawberry, try to order a Pinot Noir, Grenache, Sangiovese, Merlot or Nebbiolo.
Black fruit flavors tend to be more full-bodied.
For blends, you may taste both red and black fruit. The winemaker takes the opportunity to incorporate red and black fruit flavors to enhance the body and complexity of a wine. If you’re able to identify one or the other, you’ll be picking out the different grapes used in the blend.
For white wines, fruit flavors generally fall into “citrus fruit” and “tree fruit”.
If you like orange, lemon, lime, grapefruit (or the zest of any of these fruits), try Semillon, Chardonnay, Riesling or Pinot Grigio.
If you like apple, pear, peach, apricot, try Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier or Gewurtzraminer.
Personally, I believe that the idea of “terroir – a sense of place” impacts white wines more. For example, if you taste a Chenin Blanc from South Africa, you will note that the flavors are much riper and the wine will have notes of peach, apricot and mango whereas a Chenin Blanc grown in the Loire will have less ripe notes of lemon, green apple and lime. You can see that the same grape varietal, grown in different climates, can be drastically different.
When you taste white wine, think of the type of fruit and the ripeness of the fruit.
Following this, try to assess whether there are herbs and spices, earth or mineral flavors. You can also check for flavors like vanilla, chocolate, toast, smoke, and oak. These can come from winemaking, barrel and bottle ageing.
Finally, assess your palate sensations (i.e the taste of wine):
Acid: acid adds sourness to wine. You can tell how much acid is in a wine based on how much your mouth waters OR a tingling sensation on the tip of your tongue.
Tannin: tannin adds bitterness to wine. This quality can be felt by both the drying sensation on your cheeks and the harshness on the back of your tongue.
Sweetness: to determine if a wine is sweet (i.e if there is residual sugar from the winemaking process or added sugar), lick your lips to see if they are sugary or determine whether you feel a coating of sugar on your inner cheeks.
Body: is mouthfeel of wine. I often use the analogy of skim milk to half/half. It is the combination of several things including grape variety, alcohol and sweetness.
Alcohol: also contributes bitterness to wine, and you’ll feel the “heat” in the back of your tongue.
Examining these specific taste and flavor components can open a lot of doors in finding wines you will enjoy, and filtering out ones you may not!