Wine Terms

Acid or Acidity in Wine
-Acidity in wine is the feeling of your mouth salivating after you’ve taken a sip.
-The term “crisp” or “crisp wine” refers to the presence of high acidity in wine.
-The longer your mouth salivates after drinking, the crisper the wine is or more acidity is present.

Tannins in Wine or Tannic wine:
-Tannins come from grape skins, grape seeds, grape stems and oak barrels.
-Tannins in wine create that dry mouth-puckering feeling either in your gums or tongue.

Balanced Wine:
-Sometimes acidity in wine, alcohol and presence of tannins are too high.
-When the presence of tannins, alcohol and acids balance each other out so that neither are overly powerful.

Nose: 
-When someone refers to wine’s “nose” it means the aroma or bouquet.

Palate:
-Palate refers to what you taste

Wine’s Body or Body:
-Body in wine or the “Wine’s Body” refers to how it feels in your mouth.
-To judge body, think of milk.  Skim Milk = light, Whole Milk = full bodied.

Wine Mouthfeel:
-The wine’s Mouthfeel is similar body in wine.  Mouthfeel refers to the wine’s texture.
-Wine can sometimes feel oily, or glycerol, velvety, smooth, etc…

Fruit Forward Wine:
-Fruit Forward Wine refers to having more fruit flavors than others such as earthy or spice.

Wine aroma:
-Wine aroma is what you smell in the wine that is a result of the wine’s aging process.

Wine Bouquet:
-Wine Bouquet is what you smell in wine that is result of the grapes themselves.  Fruit and floral.

Letting the wine breath:
-Letting a wine breathe refers to allowing oxygen to wake up the flavors, aromas and bouquets.
-Wine is sealed up sometimes as much as 20 to 30 years.  Letting it breathe is essential to wake everything up.

Finish:
-a wine’s finish is how long the flavor lingers in your mouth after drinking

Flabby
-Flabby wine is wine that has very low acidity

Dry Wine:
-Dry wine means wine that has no residual sugar.
-All wine is dry unless it specifies otherwise.

Off-Dry Wine: 
-Off-Dry Wine is wine that has a small amount of residual sugar
-This will be made known on the wine.
-Demi-Sec is a term you may see as well.

***Wine’s that aren’t dry will say so.  Terms such as Late Harvest, Dessert, Off-Dry, Sweet,  Sec, Demi-Sec***

Terroir:
-A somewhat multi-definition word.
-In general, Terroir is the entire environment in which the grape grows.
-The climate, the soil, surrounding vegetation, the smells in the air, the personal touch of the wine grower and wine maker.

Vinification
-Turning grape juice into wine