By Kathleen Lisson, CSW

http://kathleenlisson.blogspot.com

Step One: Train Yourself to Taste Wine

Gary Vaynerchuk is making the rounds of late night TV with bowls full of dirt and tobacco, but you really don’t have to go that far to discover the aromas and flavors in the your favorite wine’s tasting notes. If you’re in the Albany, NY area, attend my wine palate training class at the Honest Weight Coop.

Step Two: Learn to Taste Like a Pro

Wine tasting can be a sample as enjoying a glass on the deck at sunset or as complicating as judging flights of wines in a wine competition. If you’d like to get more enjoyment out of every glass of wine, do what the professionals do:

To full appreciate a wine’s flavor, inhale, take a sip, roll the liquid around in your mouth, coating your taste buds, and exhale through your nose before swallowing. If you are feeling brave, purse your lips in a small ‘o’ shape and inhale a little air, running it over the wine in your mouth, then exhale that air through your nose. After you swallow, note how long the taste of the wine stays in your mouth. This is called the wine’s ‘finish.’

• Taste white wine before red wine, light bodied before full bodied wine, ‘still’ (regular) wine before sweeter ‘dessert’ wine.
• Taste wine at the correct temperature, 50 – 60 degrees for whites, 55 – 65 degrees for rose, and 62 – 68 degrees for reds.
• Don’t put on cologne/perfume or brush your teeth before drinking wine.
• Instead of just drinking the wine, practice the 5 S’s of wine tasting – See, Swirl, Sniff, Sip and Savor.

Step Three: Pop Some Corks

This is a fun way to have an evening in with friends. Go to your local wine shop and ask for suggestions for a ‘sample case’ of wine. Choose one bottle of oaked Chardonnay, unoaked Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, dry Riesling, off dry Riesling, Pinot Grigio/Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, fruit-bomb Merlot, old world Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah/Shiraz. Divvy the list up among your friends, and have your new ‘Wine Tasting Club’ get together over the course of a few weeks to sample 4-6 wines at a time. Taste, and then try to describe what you are tasting using the flavors you remember from your wine palate training.

Step Four: Practice Makes Perfect

 Learning about wine can take a lifetime; here are some fun ideas to get you on your way:

• Take your results from the wine tasting in Step Three and ask your local wine shop to put together a second case of wine for your personal use. Drink these wines over the next few months and choose which ones are your favorites.
• Follow your favorite wine around the world, trying versions from different countries.
• Rent a wine-related educational video from Netflix or your local library.
• Consider joining a wine group. Meetup.com and LocalWineEvents.com are great resources for finding local wine lovers.
• Pick up some books from the library on wine and food pairing and try different wines with family meals.
• Host a wine and dessert or wine and cheese tasting party at your home.

 Kathleen Lisson is a Certified Specialist of Wine and teaches wine classes in Albany, NY. Find wine and food pairing advice at my website: http://kathleenlisson.blogspot.com

Buttery-- Buttery aromas and flavors exist in wines that have undergone malolactic fermentation, a process that sometimes follows a wine's alcoholic fermentation. In the malolactic process, bacteria convert malic acid (which is fairly harsh) to lactic acid (which is softer on the palate), and a byproduct of the reaction is a compound called diacetyl. Diacetyl is the same compound found in butter which makes butter smell, well, buttery. Most red wines undergo malolactic fermentation, but diacetyl is faint enough that by the time a red wine is bottled and released, the buttery aromas are pretty well masked by all the wine's other aromas. White wines don't have quite as much going on with their aromatics, so that buttery quality is more apparent to the nose. Not all whites undergo malolactic fermentation, and in many cases the buttery quality would clash with the other flavors and aromas and be generally unpleasant. The exception to this is Chardonnay, which often benefits from the flavor. And since the butteriness is the result of the conversion of harsh malic acid to soft lactic acid, buttery wines are generally wines with lower perceived acidity.

Oxidized-- Just as oxidization wipes out a wine's bright colors over time, it wipes out the bright flavors and aromas. The result, for example, would be that a wine with flavors of fresh strawberries turns into a wine with very faint flavors of strawberries and dominant flavors of alcohol, old caramel, sherry, and occasionally acetic acid. Except for the alcohol, these types of flavors are the result of oxidation, and once a wine's fruit is gone, that's all you're left with. A little oxidation is usually good, especially considering that without oxidation, great wine would never mature to become even greater wines. The damage to a wine is when the process goes too far. I should point out that there's nothing harmful about a wine in this state; the worst it will do is offend your nose and palate.

Reduced-- Chemically speaking, this is the complement of oxidized, and neither reaction takes place without the other. But just because excessive oxidation is a fault, this doesn't mean that a reduced wine is preferable to one that is oxidized. If there is too little oxygen available to a wine, the result is that the wine can show skunky aromas of sulfur, burnt match heads, and something akin to swamp gas. The ideal state for a wine is for there to be a proper equilibrium of reduction and oxidation.

Vinegar-- I feel the need to mention this one because it's a misunderstood term (where wine is concerned, at least) and one that is typically used only by people who don't understand exactly what vinegar is and what its relationship is to wine. Old, over-the-hill wine is not vinegar; it's simply old, over-the-hill wine. Vinegar, on the other hand, is the result of taking any dilute alcohol solution (not just wine) and allowing the alcohol to be oxidized and converted into acetic acid by acetobacter bacteria. It is very, very rare for this process to happen spontaneously to a bottle of wine. Yes, over time some of the alcohol in a wine will be converted to acetic acid through the slow process of oxidization, but that does not mean that the wine is vinegar. Even amongst the world's worst wineries, sanitation is generally good enough that there will be no acetobacter present in the bottled wine, and, therefore, no chance that the wine will ever turn into actual vinegar.

Corked-- This is the smell that results from the compound TCA, trichloranisole, which can find its way into wine via a tainted cork. A corked wine has the nasty smell of old, wet, moldy cardboard. The TCA results (ironically) from sanitizing cork with chlorine bleach during the manufacturing process, and once it has affected the wine, there's nothing that can make it go away. Corked wines are a major problem in the business and are the main reason that many producers have moved to screwcaps and synthetic closures. TCA, I should point out, cannot hurt you; as with an over-the-hill wine, a corked wine will merely offend the nose and palate.


And so there you have it-- our brief (ha!) summary of the major descriptors that are used by wine geeks when describing a wine's appearance and flavor. As mentioned in the introduction to this piece, this is hardly a comprehensive discussion, but it is, I hope, a good start. In the following articles, we'll take a shot at the various terms we use to describe structure and texture, which will bring us into realms that are rather more subjective and creative.

See you then!

contributed by Brian Hoffer - www.savoreachglass.com

Aromas and flavors are very difficult to describe, especially since we rarely even attempt to do so outside the context of wine. Unless you're a food analyst working for Campbell's, chances are that no one has ever asked you to provide a complete and unabridged inventory of every aroma, flavor, texture and sensation that you experience when slurping down a spoonful of tomato soup. Instead, you just think, "Mmm, mmm, good!"

When we eat, we describe food as being 'delicious' or 'satisfying' or'‘awful' or 'overcooked' or 'filling,' not as tasting or smelling like something they are not: A steak tastes and smells like a steak. Wines, on the other hand, are the complete opposite; it's very rare that they smell or taste of grapes, and wine often has a fruit or cinnamon or leather aroma. And that's one of the strange beauties of Vitis vinifera, the wine grape: with absolutely no additives, and minimal intervention by the winemaker, nearly all vinifera varieties will yield wines that taste and smell nothing at all of grapes, but taste and smell plenty of blackberries or white pepper or slate or smoked meats.

This broad variation in how wines can smell can turn describing those flavors and aromas into a nightmare. But it doesn't have to be. Just like color and appearance, descriptions of a particular flavor can be taken at face value: when we say that we taste strawberries, we mean just that-- the wine tastes like strawberries, plain and simple. Not that strawberries were somehow added to the wine. Simply that all the factors involved in making a wine resulted in a wine that has a strawberry flavor as part of its character.

But there are some terms that may be confusing, especially so when the same word is often used in different ways:

Sweet (sugar)-- In the world of wine, the most basic, chemical definition of sweet is that a wine has a noticeable sugar content. The sugar content of a wine also affects its tactile qualities, something we'll get to later.

Sweet (aroma/flavor)-- Many wines have flavors and aromas that are very strongly associated with sweetness, but which are not actually sweet (containing sugar). So we describe 'sweet vanilla', 'sweet oak', 'sweet preserves', 'candied orange zest', meaning while the wine tastes sweet, it has a low sugar content.

Dry (sugar)-- Most wines are chemically dry, meaning that they contain no sugar. From a chemical standpoint, that's all that dry means: the opposite of sweet. The perception of a wine's dryness can be increased by acidity or tannin, but we'll get to that when we talk about structure and texture.

Fruity-- One of the most commonly misinterpreted terms, fruitiness is not the same as sweetness. A fruity wine is one in which the fruit aromas and flavors are the most dominant characteristic. Most light, young Côtes-du-Rhône red wines, for example, have very strong aromas and flavors of ripe raspberries and strawberries. The wine may taste fruity, but chemically speaking, it is bone dry and contains absolutely no sugar.

Fruit-- When we talk generally about a wine's fruit, we're simply making reference to the wine's fruit flavors; not necessarily saying that it is fruity or jammy. If I describe a wine as having "a nice balance of fruit, spice, and oak," I mean just that-- I like the way that the fruit flavors, spicy flavors, and oak flavors all come together.

Jammy-- Sort of a step above fruity; and again, this term has nothing to do with actual chemical sweetness or sugar. Think of the difference between strawberries and strawberry jam: the jam is more concentrated, more densely flavored, more fruity than fruity.

Spicy-- As with every other flavor descriptor, this term does not mean that anything (spice, in this case) has been added to the wine. The term also isn't meant to imply that a wine is spicy in the mouth-burning, I-just-ate-a-habañero, hot hot hot sense. Spice aromas that wines frequently reveal are black and white pepper (especially in Syrah and Grenache, respectively), clove, cinnamon, anise, nutmeg, and so on. Very often, though, there won't be a specific spice aroma that comes leaping forward-- the wine simply has a general, very noticeable character that we describe with the catchall term spicy.

Oaky-- Quite literally that the wine has flavors and aromas of oak. When wines are aged in oak barrels (especially new oak barrels) they take on some of the flavors of oak. The higher the percentage of new oak barrels used and the longer the wine stays in those barrels, the more oaky the finished wine will be. Oak can impart notes of vanilla, baking spices, liquor, and other flavors.

Earthy-- A difficult term to explain, in part because the word seems to have largely negative connotations for some people. When used to describe a wine, writers are not suggesting that drinking Château X is like eating a handful of mud. People who love earthiness in wine enjoy the aromas in much the way that an avid gardener enjoys the aromas and rich fecundity of his soil. Another positive way to think about it might be to contemplate the deliciously earthy aromas that mushrooms give off as they're sautéed. Excessive earthiness, of course, is not a positive attribute, just as excess in any attribute is generally not positive.

Tart/Sour-- Both words are used in reference to a wine's acidity, and they're useful in describing both flavor and texture. Tartness is often a positive attribute; sourness is nearly always a negative and can be interpreted as meaning excessively tart. If ‘tart' doesn't sound positive, think of how refreshing a light, ice-cold, citrusy white wine can be on a hot, muggy day-- that's tartness at its best.

 contributed by Brian Hoffer - www.savoreachglass.com