29 corks popped!!!When your about to partake of a delicious glass of wine, you swirl it, sniff it, and then sip it, taking in all the aromas and tastes it has to offer. Being able to describe your experience may take a bit of practice, but here is a great glossary of terms and adjectives to help define your senses.
Ample: The impression of being full and expansive in the mouth.
Austere: Used to describe wines, that are usually dry, relatively hard, and high in acid.
Balance: The relationship of a wine’s alcohol, residual sugar, acid and tannin. Balance is a sought-out characteristic.
Blousy: A word used to describe a wine that seems to be imbalanced in favor of high alcohol or sweetness.
Blend: A mixture of kinds or vintages of wines. Almost all wines involve blending.
Body: A wine’s body or weight is generally described as light, medium or full. High alcohol content makes a wine heavy in body.
Bouquet: The smell of wine relating to the aging and handling of the wine.
Bright: A wine be can visually bright, have bright aromas and flavors-Characteristics perceived by the senses
Brilliant: The appearance of very clear wines. Brilliant wines are the product of heavy filtration process.
Character: A term for wines that gives the impression of being solid and having substance and integrity.
Compact: A descriptor for wines that give the impression of being intense but not full.
Complex: A complex wine has many different aromas and flavors.
Concentrated: A descriptor for aromas and flavors that are dense rather than dilute.
Crisp: A wine that feels clean and slightly brittle in your mouth. Crispness refers to high acidity.
Depth: Wines with depth give the impression of having underground layers of taste rather than being flat.
Dry: A wine that is not sweet. Dry describes the texture of a wine that feels rough–can refer to a lack of sweetness.
Finish: After the wine is swallowed, the sensation left on your palate. Reflects the flavor of the wine.
Firm: Wines that are not soft, but are not harsh and tough. Relates to the tannic content of red wines and oaky white wines.
Full: Wines that gives the impression of being large in the mouth. A wine’s fullness can derive from high alcohol content.
Harsh: Highly astringent wines, high in alcohol.
Hearty: Describes full, warm qualities found in red wines with high alcohol.
Off-dry: A generalized term for wines that are neither fully dry or very sweet.
Restrained: Wines that are not expressive.
Rich: A term for wines that offer an abundance of flavor, texture, or other senses.
Robust: Descriptive for full-bodied, full flavored wine.
Round: Roundness relates to a wine’s structure, the make-up of acid, tannin, sweetness and alcohol.
Sharp: The slightly biting sensation of excess acidity or high acetic acid.
Soft: A term for wine whose sugar and alcohol dominate it acidity ant tannin – lack of hardness.
Structure: The part of a wine’s expression that derives from the wine’s basic elements, mainly acid, alcohol, tannin and sugar.
Tannic: A term used to describe wine high in tannin.
Tannin: A acid, that helps red wine age well, is found naturally in the skins and stems of grapes that causes puckering of the mouth.
Thin: Describes wines that are lacking in substance.
Tight: A term for wines that seem to be inexpressive.
Varietal: A wine made of primarily on one variety of grape.
Vintage: The yearly harvest of a wine grape. A vintage wine shows the harvest date on the label.
Well-balanced: Wines whose acid, alcohol, tannin, and residual sugar relate to each other so that none of the components seems to dominant.
Weighty: Wines with a heavy , full-bodied sense on the palate