Faking it: 8 wine terms you should know (or fake)

07 April 2011  by Anna Malczyk, Get Smarter

Wine connoisseurs tend to use a wide range of complex terms to describe their wine drinking experiences. As with any kind of jargon, the terms can be very difficult to follow if you don’t quite know what they mean – not to mention that many self-professed “experts” use them incorrectly.

Tannins
What it means: A tannin is a chemical that contributes to the feel of a wine in your mouth. Though you cannot taste tannins themselves, they are responsible for the drying sensation and sense of bitterness that some red wines have.

How to use it: “This red wine must contain a lot of tannins – it’s very dry.”

Vintage
What it means:   The vintage is the year in which a wine was produced. A vintage wine is one that is made out of grapes picked in a specific year. Often, a particularly good year will be noted as a prized vintage.

How to use it:  “2004 was a great year for local wines and produced some superior pinot noir vintages.”

Terroir
What it means:   Terroir is a broad concept that denotes the environment – especially the geography, geology and climate – in which wine grapes grow, and the specific effects this has on the grapes’ taste and characteristics. However, it’s not completely clear how much the environment actually affects the end product.

How to use it:  “The French believe that their terroir makes their wines superior, but South African wines are just as good.”

Breathing
What it means:   When air interacts with wine, it starts the chemical reaction called oxidisation (this is the same process as when rust forms). Oxidising is supposed to enhance the flavour of wine by taking away the initial sharpness of the wine and replacing it with a mellow, smooth taste. It is generally only necessary for red wine.

How to use it:  “You need to let that Merlot breathe for a hour before you drink it.”

Corked
What it means:  A corked wine is one that has been spoiled by a fungus that occasionally grows on the cork and produces an unpleasant chemical. When the wine comes into contact with the cork, it gets an unpleasant musty flavour – sometimes barely noticeable, sometimes intense. It’s possible that up to 5% of all wines that are sealed with a cork will become corked.

How to use it:  “We opened up the 2001 Pinotage but unfortunately it was corked and we couldn’t drink it.”

Varietal
What it means:   A varietal is the name for a wine made out of one “type” (or variety) of grape. A varietal wine is one made from primarily one grape variety, while a blend is one made from several varieties.

How to use it:  “Chardonnay is a varietal, whereas an SMV is made out of the Shiraz, Malbec and Viognier varieties.”

Nose
What it means:   The nose of a wine is, in essence, everything that you can smell in a wine. It includes the wine’s aroma (the inherent pleasant smell of the grapes) and bouquet (the smells that originate from the fermentation and aging of the wine), as well as any specific unpleasant odours that signal defects.

How to use it:  “This wine has a well-balanced, subtle flowery nose with hints of vanilla.”

Palate
What it means:   The palate involves all of the wine-drinking experience that takes place in the mouth – not only the taste and flavour of the wine, but also the sensations that it creates (this latter part is called, quite descriptively, the “mouthfeel” of the wine. For most people, appreciating and identifying the palate of the wine is the crux of the wine-drinking experience.

How to use it:   “This wine is quite acidic on the palate, with hints of red berries and a full, tannic mouthfeel.”

To learn more about wine tasting, consider the Stellenbosch University Wine Evaluation course, presented completely online by the GetSmarter. Visit www.getsmarter.co.za or call Emma on (021) 685-4775 for more information.