Our Master Wine Team has identified six main attributes of a wine that can be defined by four varying levels of intensity. While there are many different factors that can impact the way a wine tastes, the six components outlined below are the most consistent.
Learning about these will not only help you identify what you like about certain wines, but it can also help you discover new wines. For example, you might realize that when it comes to red wines, you actually prefer rich fruited, highly oaked, chewy-tannic reds, versus brighter, lighter fruit-driven, softer tannin reds with mouthwatering acidity.
Acids are one of the four things that our tongues can taste along with bitterness, saltiness and sweetness. When tasting acidity in wine, think of the soft acids of milk at one end of the spectrum and lemon juice at the other end, with infinite variation in between.
Oak can impart varying levels of flavor in wine, depending on: the percentage used; size of the barrels; origin (French, American, Hungarian, etc.); newness and toasting levels as well as the duration of time the wine spends in contact with the oak.
Tannins provide structure to both red and white wines, though more obviously in red wines as they are invariably fermented in contact with skins, seeds and sometime stems. Tannin is the drying effect on the finish, similar to when drinking tea.
The ripeness and intensity of fruit for each wine depends on climate, grape variety, and the stylistic choices of the winemaker — particularly the harvest date. Fruit intensity and ripeness can be detected both on the nose in terms of fruit aroma, and on the palate in terms of fruit richness and fleshiness.
The overall weight of the wine in the mouth. Think of the difference in palate weight between the different types of milks, with lightest bodied wines as having the body of fat free milk and the fullest bodied wines the weight of whole milk.
Delicate body: Very light-bodied wines, similar to fat-free milk.
Elegant body: Light-bodied wines similar to low-fat (1%) milk.
Dense body: Much weightier wines similar to reduced-fat (2%) milk.
Opulent body: The fullest, heaviest wines similar to whole milk.
Like acidity, sweetness is a taste that can be perceived by the tongue. Sweetness can be balanced by other components in the wine, particularly acid and tannin, so sweetness can be cloying, or help smooth out the wine, depending on the overall balance.
Of course, you can always lean on our hand-picked wine selections. But the next time you’re ordering wine at a restaurant or hosting a wine and cheese night, we hope this tool serves as your very own wine vocabulary cheat sheet to help you better understand why you like certain wines and encourages you to discover new ones.