Author: James Hirtenstein

When looking at a wine menu, it’s natural to feel somewhat confused. Not only are there varietals, vintages, and vineyard names to wrap your head around, but there might also be flavor descriptors that are hyper-specific and, frankly, don’t seem very appetizing. Maybe the Cabernet Sauvignon has leather on the finish, or  or that Sauvignon Blanc has an aroma that is overwhelmingly similar to cat pee.

While these characteristics may sound unappealing, they’re just a part of what makes a wine complex. And no, sommeliers don’t pull these obscure ingredients out of thin air – they thoughtfully taste and evaluate the wine in order to write tasting notes.

Understanding tasting notes is important for anyone who likes to drink wine. Essentially, they’re the key to knowing what you like and dislike about what’s in your glass, and can be critical to understanding what pairs best with the dish you’re cooking. For instance, some people prefer their white wine to be loaded with flavors of tropical fruit, like mango and papaya, while others prefer something more oaky and buttery. While some drinkers want big bold reds, others prefer something light and bright with notes of strawberries and red cherries. Once you know how to identify these characteristics, you can begin to understand how the wine’s varietals, growing conditions, and terroir affects the flavor and aroma.  As it turns out, writing your own tasting notes is easier than you might think.

During the 40th anniversary of the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, wine writer and television host Leslie Sbrocco walked an audience of attendees through a blind tasting during a seminar called, “YOU Write the Tasting Note.” By the end, the group collectively created tasting notes for six wines, all thanks to Sbrocco’s four steps. “See, swirl, smell, and sip,” she says. “That’s the best way to figure out if you like a wine or don’t like a wine.”

Step 1: See

Before anything else, Sbrocco encouraged the attendees to pick up their glasses and tilt them slightly over their white placemats – an ideal platform since the white does not obstruct the wine’s color. If you are tasting multiple wines, Sbrocco suggests standing up and looking down into the glass from above in order to compare the wines’ colors. “When you’re looking at the color, it tells us a lot of things,” she says. “Maybe oak treatment or age.” Wine tends to change color with age due to oxidation. “You cut an apple or pear. What happens? It oxidizes. It turns brown. So over time a wine is going to oxidize.” With white wines that means the color gets darker and more golden, and with reds, the color gets browner over time.

You can also get a sense of the wine’s body – or viscosity –  just based on how fast or slow it drips down the inside bulb of your wineglass.

Step 2: Swirl

People don’t just swirl wine because it’s fun. The act of swirling a glass of wine exposes the wine to oxygen which allows it to release more aroma and open up its flavor. As an experiment, you can try smelling and tasting a wine before and after swirling – you’ll see how much easier it is to define tasting notes with a simple swirl.

Step 3: Smell

Don’t be shy. Stick your nose into the wine glass and take a whiff. Try to take smaller, short inhales to not wear out your nose. Then, simply see what scents come to mind. It could be something floral, something peppery, or even something funky. To help attendees identify these smells, Sbrocco gave them large pieces of paper, printed with common wine descriptors like “oaky,” “aromatic,” and “fruity.”

Step 4: Sip  

It’s time to taste! Take a sip and think about the flavors that hit your tongue. How do they compare or contrast to the smell? What do they remind you of?

Read the rest of the original article and lots of other great content on Food & Wine.

When you’re ready for a wine tasting tour, Main Street Drivers provides customized tours for wine enthusiasts of all levels in popular wine regions throughout the US.  Check out our featured location in June for Willamette Valley Wine Tours.

 

Everyone has a favorite wine or two, even if your favorite flavor is “boxed.” Maybe you’re a diehard dessert wine fan, or maybe you pride yourself on drinking wine so dry it makes your cheeks pucker. Either way, wine shelves span a continuum from extra dry (aka “brut”) to dry, semi-dry, semi-sweet, and sweet — and the tasting experience couldn’t be more different with each type.

It all comes down to one key factor: acidity. A highly acidic wine will make you salivate, which depletes the moisture in your mouth and impresses the feeling of “dryness.” Dry wines might make it feel like the insides of your cheeks are adhering to your cheeks or induce a cannabis-esque dry tongue. On the flip side, sweeter wines might offer a syrupy mouthfeel, draping your tongue in a sort of viscous blanket of sugar. As a visual cue, a thicker sweet wine might even coat the sides of your wine glass. Indeed, wine tasting is essentially a sexy chemistry experiment and sweetness and acidity go hand-in-hand.

The sweetness or dryness of a given wine is determined by how much sugar it holds onto during its unique fermentation process. Dryness or sweetness is also heavily influenced by a wine’s tannins, which add bitterness and create a dryer mouthfeel. On a biological level, tannins actually reduce the taste buds’ ability to perceive sugar. It all comes down to one key factor: acidity. A highly acidic wine will make you salivate, which depletes the moisture in your mouth and impresses the feeling of “dryness.” Dry wines might make it feel like the insides of your cheeks are adhering to your cheeks or induce a cannabis-esque dry tongue. On the flip side, sweeter wines might offer a syrupy mouthfeel, draping your tongue in a sort of viscous blanket of sugar. As a visual cue, a thicker sweet wine might even coat the sides of your wine glass. Indeed, wine tasting is essentially a sexy chemistry experiment and sweetness and acidity go hand-in-hand.

The sweetness or dryness of a given wine is determined by how much sugar it holds onto during its unique fermentation process. Dryness or sweetness is also heavily influenced by a wine’s tannins, which add bitterness and create a dryer mouthfeel. On a biological level, tannins actually reduce the taste buds’ ability to perceive sugar.

There are also ways to tell whether a wine is going to be dry or sweet without even tasting it.

Acidity, ABV, and sugar content: The unsung orchestrators

Picture this: You’re browsing your local wine shop, or perusing the wine list at a fancy restaurant. You know what you like, and can therefore rely on a go-to Riesling or Cabernet Sauvignon as a safe bet to please your palate… right? Not necessarily. Due to the processing-related reasons we just listed, any variety of wine has the capacity to be sweet or dry. What’s a struggling sommelier to do? How can you tell whether a wine will be dry or sweet without tasting a single drop? Enlist the guidance of a wine tech sheet. These can be found for specific types of wine and will provide stats on what’s inside, including dryness or sweetness, which is indicated by a percentage amount of residual sugars. As a rule, 1% indicates a dry wine, 2 to 4% indicates mid, and 5% or above is sweet.

Sweet varieties also often tote lower ABVs. Scientifically, this is because sugars are converted into alcohol during the fermentation process. Therefore, as alcohol content becomes higher, sugar content becomes lower. A wine with an 11% ABV or less is generally going to be pretty sweet.

Read the full article and other great wine tasting content on The Tasting Table.

When you’re ready for a wine tasting tour, Main Street Drivers provides customized tours for wine enthusiasts of all levels in popular wine regions throughout the US.  Check out our featured location this month for Willamette Valley Wine Tours.

When talking about grape varieties – specifically in the realm of tasting, and particularly blind tasting – it’s only a matter of time until the notion of typicity comes up.

However, numerous factors, including climate change, regionally synonymous grape varieties being planted elsewhere (Sangiovese in California, Nebbiolo in Australia, etc.) and the rise in certain winemaking styles (carbonic maceration, more natural/low-intervention methods), has caused the notion of typicity to become slightly hazy.

What is typicity?

Dan Petroski, founder and winemaker at California-based Massican, explains that typicity is a word defined by the wine industry. “I don’t think it is actually an English word, just a translation of the French word that means, typical,” he says, adding that this notion of “typical” can have many diverse meanings, ranging from being typical of a variety, place, or style.

Robin Wright, beverage director of NYC-based Ci Siamo, builds on this, sharing that Wikipedia defines typicity as “a term in wine tasting used to describe the degree to which a wine reflects its varietal origins and thus demonstrates the signature characteristics of the grape from which it was produced”.

Miguel de Leon, general manager/wine director at Pinch Chinese, describes his definition of typicity as the quality of a wine to be expressive in the essence of a grape’s expected characteristics. “It’s the tell of the wine to show that it’s made with a particular variety, and how that changes through the canvas of geologies available to the grape,” he says.

On a similar note, Catherine Fallis, Master Sommelier of Bright Cellars, notes that the notion of typicity is rooted in a grape type showing its DNA, such as Sauvignon Blanc‘s signature green, herbaceous, and grassy notes. “Where the grape is grown will impact alcohol level, and where it is allowed, winemaking may change it even further,” she explains. “However, in the end, a quality Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley, Coastal Chile, California, or Marlborough, New Zealand, will all have the greenness.”

Embodying typicity

Petroski says that a red or a white grape can be of its type – that is, true to its variety – even if it’s planted all over the world. “The climate, the fermentary process, and the choices of the winemaker will then add another layer of typicity,” he says. Similarly, for de Leon, good examples of wines that are expressive of typicity are those that provide hallmark flavors, regardless of where they are grown – which for him, are international varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Grenache, and Riesling. “The more international a variety, [the more] it opens up the idea of compare and contrast,’ he says, describing said comparisons as useful for academic purposes, as the rest of the terroir can inform how that variety will express itself. He also highlights that oftentimes, a loss of typicity is process driven. “I think wines that require a certain kind of manipulation lose the notion of typicity quickly – think pét-nat and rosés, for example,” he says.

However, de Leon finds that the notion is bunk when discussing grape varieties that are, in his opinion, “completely underserved” (hybrid varieties, backyard indigenous varieties, etc.), as there hasn’t been a large enough sample size or benchmark to place said wines within any sort of comparable category. Emphasizing de Leon’s process-driven point, Wright looks at Sauvignon Blanc, which generally shows notes of grapefruit, gooseberry, and pyrazines, though can often lose its typicity when vinified in specific ways. She reveals that according to the CMS, Sauvignon Blanc from Napa Valley is often riper and aged in new oak. “I find it very interesting how I’ve seen master-level candidates absolutely stumped when blinding this wine,” she reveals, attributing the difficulty to the ripeness and oak characteristics masking the grape’s classic notes.

Wright also uses Sauternes as an even more striking example. “The wine has so much botrytis and oak that the typicity of the grape is nowhere to be found,” she says.”But do we still love it? Absolutely!” Wright feels that beyond varietal typicity, we should be celebrating the way in which a grape can show itself in a variety of regions and styles. “Instead of celebrating only grape typicity, let’s celebrate stylistic and regional typicity which can be different from vineyard to vineyard.”

The relevance of typicity

For de Leon, the relevance of typicity comes down to usefulness. He explains that if we’re trying to explain how to identify a grape variety to someone, then yes, typicity is important. However, he finds that when talking about a variety in the context of being a global product – particularly with the rise of natural wine and low-intervention practices – then typicity generally isn’t the leading question surrounding the framework of a wine.

Wright ponders whether the notion of typicity has ever been relevant. She equates the recent trends of natural winemaking and carbonic maceration to the fashion of using 100 percent new oak in the past, which can also cover the notion of grape typicity. (Wright also cites botrytis, fortification and intensely ripe grapes as other influences that could mask the notion of typicity.) “There are trends that influence and change wine styles in every region and with almost every grape; I think the older we get the more natural it is for us to shun new trends when the reality is we have been a part of all sorts of trends, and many have come before us,” she says.

For Petroski, the notion of typicity is still relevant, mostly because it is malleable. “I talk about Massican as wine being in a ‘typical’ style,” he says. “When I do blending trials, I ask myself: does this wine smell and feel like Annia? Is it typical of the Massican style?”

Though for others, the relevance of typicity is much more concrete. “Yes, yes, yes!” exclaims Fallis, when asked about her opinion on whether typicity is relevant or not. She says that while there are thousands of grape varieties in the world, consumers would be happy to know just four to 10, rendering typicity important in helping the majority of wine drinkers to figure out what they like. “Trends come and go. Grape DNA stands still,” she says.

Typicity in natural wine

Despite their popularity, Fallis finds that it is more difficult to find grape DNA under natural winemaking styles, which she cites as often having the “familiar funk of craft brew or kombucha”. Petroski disagrees. “There are so many wines made naturally that are pristine examples of grape and place,” he says. “I believe they represent red or white grapes very well, regional climate, and style typicity.”

Read the rest of the article on Wine-Searcher.

When you’re ready for a wine tasting tour, Main Street Drivers provides customized tours for wine enthusiasts of all levels in popular wine regions throughout the US.  Check out our featured location this month for Finger Lakes Wine Tours.

There’s no shame in admitting you’ve perused a restaurant’s wine list, opting for the most expensive glass to impress a date. Or perhaps you’ve headed to a dinner party with a bottled gift that you or the liquor shop owner deemed was within an acceptable price range. Even wine connoisseurs fall prey to the price point paradox. The more expensive the bottle of vino, the more sophisticated the grape juice, correct?

A few factors determine the price point of a bottle of bold red or crisp white: The wine region, vineyard, and quality of grape; what the wine was fermented in and whether or not it involved oak; and how long the wine was aged.

The perfect storm of what’s in the bottle and what you think is in it makes relying on the sticker price alone a precarious move. Your brain might trick you into thinking the wine tastes better if you happened to have spent more money on it. So why won’t the pricier bottle of wine necessarily taste better to you? The answer is two-fold.

Price is not always indicative of quality

If you’re a novice in the wine world browsing the daunting aisles of stacked reds and whites, your eyes probably first go to the label and the sticker on the shelf. While it’s tempting to pick a price tag, pretty illustration, or catchy name, assuming the liquid inside will follow suit is risky. It’s worth remembering wine is an industry-selling product that entails branding and marketing.

A study published in the Journal of Wine Economics in 2008 concluded a lack of correlation between the overall rating of a bottle of wine and its price. In other words, a higher price does not always equal a higher quality wine.

Much like it’s imprudent to judge a book by its cover, choosing a bottle of wine based on its price is ill-advised (though, by all means, go for that cool label if that’s your jam).

Your palate may not be up to par

This one might hurt the ego a bit, but if you’re not a sommelier or anywhere near that realm, you may be unable to detect the subtle nuances separating good from a great wine. Often, the higher the price point on that bottle, the more intricate those nuances will be. Your palate may not be a fan if you’re an amateur imbiber.

Moreover, inexpensive wine usually has more residual sugar to compensate for the lower-quality grapes. Since sugar makes just about anything taste better, you’re probably used to the sweeter taste if you’re not a habitual or finicky wine drinker. A more expensive wine without that higher residual sugar content may come across as bitter or boring to your taste buds.

Read the rest of the article on The Daily Meal here.

When you’re ready for a wine tasting tour, Main Street Drivers provides customized tours for wine enthusiasts of all levels in popular wine regions throughout the US.  Check out our featured location this month for Willamette Valley Wine Tours.