Step 4: With your words
Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the final and perhaps most important step: the eloquence of describing the taste of wine. The terminology for wine can be quite complicated, but here are some basics to keep in mind:
Balance: Major components of wine include sweetness, acidity, and tannin. A wine is balanced when not one element sticks out over another, such as harsh tannin or too much sweetness when you are tasting the wine.
Length: Used to describe a wine with a long aftertaste. Length in the mouth can more precisely be called palate length to avoid confusion. In general, long palate length is a sure sign of high quality.
Depth: Another subjective and unmeasurable attribute of high-quality wine is its depth. We say a wine has depth when it doesn’t taste flat and one-dimensional in your mouth. A ‘flat’ wine can never be great.
Complexity: Experts use this term specifically to indicate that a wine has a multiplicity of aromas and flavours.
Finish: The impression that a wine leaves in the back of your mouth and in your throat after you swallow it is its finish or aftertaste. In a good wine, you can still perceive the wine’s flavours, such as fruitiness or spiciness, at that point. The longer you still taste the flavours, the longer the finish is.
Sweetness: As soon as you put the wine into your mouth, you can usually notice sweetness or the lack of it. In the language of wine, ‘dry’ is the opposite of sweet. Classify the wine you’re tasting as either dry, off-dry (in other words, slightly sweet), or sweet. If a wine is really sweet, you will be able to taste the sweetness even without smelling the fruitiness. Try holding your nose and have a taste if you want to be sure of its sweetness.
Acidity: It is a key taste factor in white wines more than in reds. White wines with a high amount of acidity feel crisp, and those without enough acidity feel flabby. How much you salivate after tasting wine can give you a clue as to its acidity level, because high acidity triggers saliva production. Classify the wine you’re tasting as crisp or soft.
Tannin: When you take a sip of red wine and rapidly experience a drying-out feeling in your mouth as if something had blotted up your saliva, that means your mouth recognises tannin. A key factor to tasting reds, tannin is best described as bitterness or as firmness or richness of texture, mainly in the rear of your mouth, on the inside of your cheeks, and on your gums. Depending on the amount and nature of its tannin, you can describe a red wine as astringent, firm, or soft.
Wine’s body: Used to describe the impression of the weight and size of the wine in your mouth, which is usually attributable mainly to a wine’s alcohol. But some wines seem fuller, bigger, or heavier in the mouth than others—it’s an abstract concept but trust us on this. Depending on how much the wine is weighing your tongue down, you can classify the wine as light-bodied, medium-bodied, or full-bodied.