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The Winebase
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WINE GLOSSARY
What those words mean to the wine drinker
- Acidity
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An essential component of any wine, it is the platform, on which the fruits stand, and gives the wine its essential balance.
- Balanced
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Essential in all wines and often sadly lacking in many, balance is all about getting the elements of the wine in proportion. So you have enough fruit, tannin and acidity to make the wine feel greater than the sum of its parts.
- Biscuity
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Commonly seen on the notes of wine writers talking about sparkling wines. It presents itself as a sweet, yeasty smell and a taste of dry digestive biscuits. It is predominantly derived from the action of autolysysis, the interaction between enzymes and yeast in the bottle fermentation stage of sparkling wine production.
- Chocolate
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Associated with certain reds particularly those containing Merlot, it refers to the smell of bitter chocolate, and is tinged with creamy notes.
- Clean
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The finish of a wine should be long, but the wine itself should end on a clean, crisp note, with all the characteristics well defined and integrated.
- Concentration
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All grapes have certain tastes and flavours that are indigenous too them. Concentration just goes to measure how intense and prominent these flavours are.
- Crisp
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Can refer to red wines as well as whites; in white wines, it refers to the fresh acidity and tangy fruit. The same is true of red wines, where it may refer to the type of fruit that is being noted.
- Finish
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When tasting or drinking wine, you will be presented with a combination of flavours right at the end of trying it. This is the finish, and can be dominated by one flavour, like vanilla, or by a combination, such as spicy cherries and raspberries. It goes to make up your opinion of the wine as a whole.
- Floral
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This does not refer to any single flower, but rather to the nose of some white wines that have a ripe, rich, slightly fragrant nose, which, when taken as a whole, is reminiscent of flowers.
- Fruit Driven
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Term frequently used to describe New World red and white wines that have an abundance of fruit scents and flavours.
- Fruity
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Fruit is the most satisfying of all the elements of wine and takes on a myriad of guises and styles. Too much fruit can leave a wine being unsatisfying, while too little can leave a wine joyless.
- Green
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Can refer to either acidity in the wine, denoting its slightly raw taste, rather like the harsh acidity of underripe apples. Green may also refer to the fruit itself, in both red and white wines. This will dictate that the grapes were not quite ripe, and that the harvest may have been a difficult one.
- Length
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Literally means the length of time you can still taste the wine after you have swallowed it.
- Minerally
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Certain vineyards and grapes take on a mineral flavour from their soils. Riesling, for instance, is often said to have saltiness when it takes on the flavour of the limestone and clay the vines are planted on. This characteristic is most apparent on the finish.
- Nose/Bouquet
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The amalgamation of scents and smells that a wine gives off when opened.
- Oaky
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Pertaining to the effect of fermenting and/or ageing wines in oak barrels, which imparts a level of vanillin in the wines. Often the wines show this characteristic on the nose and in the mouth. The level of flavour that the oak imparts will depend on the type of oak i.e. new barrels give more than older ones based on the time the wine has stayed in it, and the size of the cask. The bigger the cask, the less the wine/wood ratio and therefore, the less the 'oaky' effect.
- Petrolly
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This is associated with older Riesling based wines. The term petrol refers to the overripe fruit flavours and clean, lime lemon acidity of Riesling wines.
- Rim/Core
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If you take a glass of wine, particularly a red wine and lay it on its side against a white background you may be able to see a marked difference in the colour between the rim (the edge) and the core (the centre). This difference is a good way of indicating the state of maturity of the wine. The greater the disparity the more mature the wine.
- Soft
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Used to describe wines whose feel in the mouth is gentle and with out too much abrasion. Often used to describe a red wine lacking in tannin.
- Spicy
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This is often used in red and white wines in various stages of the tasting process. It can be detected on the nose of some New World reds, particularly Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz or in certain fragrant white wines such as Gewurztraminer, which is famed for its tropical fruit and sweet spice scents. Spice can also be detected in the mouth or directly after you swallowed and appear as tingling, peppery sensation on the tongue. This in part due to the alcohol and part the natural flavour of the grapes. Spicy characters can also come from a wine's contact with wood.
- Structure
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Here we are talking about the components of the wine and whether they are balanced. This applies equally to reds and whites, but the terms differ to suit the components of the wine. In reds you would be looking of fruit, acidity, tannin and length. In the whites you are just looking for fruit, acidity and length.
- Tannin
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The thing that leaves your teeth feeling fuzzy and your gums dry when you drink some red wines. Tannins are long string proteins that are found naturally occurring on the skins of grapes as well as the oak of casks. When large amounts are present, it often leads tasters to refer to a wine as hard. Tannins in wine help promote its longevity and in time soften into the wine.
- Toasty
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Offshoot of oak ageing process. Oak casks are usually charred inside, and this may present itself in the wine as the flavour of warm toast or on the nose as just overdone white toast.
- Weighty
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To describe a wine with plenty of power and fruit that takes time in the mouth to get the full benefit from. This term can apply to red wines as well as white.
- Young/Youthful
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The description of young or youthful refers not to the wine age but it's state of maturity. The state of maturity can be gauged by the colour of the wine i.e. as red wines age, they lose colour and, more essentially, they lose the intensity of the colour. A young claret, therefore, will fade in time to ruby and then garnet. Perversely, as white wines age, they get darker as the effects of oxidation take hold.
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