When the leaves turn red, my wine does too. When it’s light and bright, my wine is white. You’re welcome.
1
I got nothing useful from this. I was hoping for much more.
If I order a wine at a restaurant that is above average or better (or better than that), I would have nothing new to say to our server.
Terminology only.
I prefer more literal terms like “chewy as a baseball glove” or “cottonmouth on the palate” I will say Rhône wines are savory in the best possible way. As a vegetarian I drink Syrah to get my roasted meat fix.
Love it! THANK YOU.
I got into a spar with a UC Davis professor about 20 years ago who was on the other side of the spectrum. He kept arguing that only the flavors and aromas on their aroma wheel should be used to describe a wine, nothing else. I asked if two, or ten totally different wines had the same three (limited) descriptors, how could they be differentiated. He bowed out of the argument. (Unable to respond, obviously) So sad. Just another brick in the wall.
One of my favorite descriptors? "Delicious!"
1
"Does it smell or taste like slate? The sidewalk after a rain? I reject that as well. Minerality is a highly useful general term that helps to convey the character of wines, which can seem stony, pebbly or rocky in aroma, flavor and texture."
As poor Mr Asimov tries to clarify he gets lost in the gravel path....
please explain to me why "stony, pebbly, etc" is better than "slate" or a "sidewalk"....all are hard, made of rock, and mineral.
This article is hilarious and amazingly silly! So much fun to laugh! Thank you!
1
Enjoyed the article and loved the comments. Thank you for both.
1
How about "In your face" : i.e. when you stack up far too many adjectives about a wine you've just sipped and the person across the table realizes you're a pretentious blowhard and tosses his glass of vino in your kisser....
1
@Jon
The person across the table is obviously drunk. Take the keys away and call a taxi.
3
Amen!
@Joe Gru you seem to practice a different religion than I do. Mine is wine based.
I prefer wines with an oaky afterbirth.
4
@Phil those pair well with beet salad
1
I'm sorry, but many of these words still cause forhead-slapping. Tense?
5
A presumptious wine with just a soupcon of old socks and dishwater....sometimes the wine story is better than the wine!
I just know when it has a strong mineral finish it tastes like paint stripper to me.
4
Surprised you say nothing about balance!
I have never laughed so hard reading an article, and certainly not one in the NY Times (well, maybe some of Ross Douthat's ramblings) as I did reading this one.
Linearity? Power? Life?
It sounds more like the guy is talking about photography or fil making than a beverage.
6
Two more useful words: breast cancer.
I'm a little slow, so I've just recently learned how the alcohol industry has distracted us from the increased danger for women by pushing the lie that red wine's good for our hearts. And the news media plays right along.
I know, I love(d) drinking wine. I didn't want to hear this either. https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/alcohol/alcohol-fact-sheet
4
@Susan Duerksen
thanks
1
Very nice, thank you.
2
Is this article a joke?
Am I just not getting it?
Someone can actually taste 'tense' or 'energetic' in a wine?
Someone can describe, via smell, a wine that is 'lean?'
Wine has 'structure?'
Wine can feel 'alive' in a glass? What, does it move on it's own?
Honestly, this sounds like a rather snobby man all hyped up on his wine trying to sound super smart by embodying wine with all sorts of adjectives and weird phrases and false images and exaggerated language to sound even smarter.
How about this: Do you like it or not?
5
@Katie: This article is not a joke! I know exactly what Eric Asimov is writing about. These words, as applied to wine, really do carry specific meaning.
Another word I've heard used is "spine" - as in, "this wine has some spine." I heard a saleswoman in a wine shop use that word to describe an elegant red wine that hailed from South Africa, which I'd brought recently. I knew exactly what she meant.
And yes, wine can be "alive." So can fine brandy, e.g. excellent quality cognac, be "alive."
4
The other day I read a book that was well-aged, lavishly tannic, with an absolutely aromatic bouquet after the last chapter. I washed it down with a jazz quartet imbued with a hint of raspberry, smooth structured, yet at the same time savory.
See how stupid this whole thing is when applied to other, equally finer things in life?
3
The most important word to know is "more".
5
How about: Seriously?
3
An amusing balance of synonyms and antonyms with subtle notes of Roget's Thesaurus.
10
A step in the right direction. A wet side-step compares to old telephone, sometimes.
Another word to know is alcoholism. It is not glamorous.
1
Well... I’m glad you cleared that up....
4
Or if you’re French you just need a few words: C’est pas mal
9
All I can think about when the wine drinking starts is will it stop after one or two oversized glasses? Or will the situation get ugly and embarrassing? And I don’t drink.
1
The article itself made me laugh (with derision). The readers’ smart-aleck comments made me roar (with delight).
2
I work in a hospital.. For wine beer or cocktails we use the helpful words like toxin, poison, under the influence, reek of alcohol, drunk, self medicating, alcohol rage, alcohol violence, hypertension, stroke, cirrhosis, gastritis, pancreatitis, malnutrition, vitamin deficiency, Wernicke encephalopathy, Korsakoff psychosis. fatty liver....etc..
4
You can get all those symptoms without touching alcohol. I know this because I am doing this slowly, slowly as I write this. I am sick and tired of the alcohol shaming around liver disease. When I told the doctors that I drank only moderately they assumed I was lying and wasted my time setting up alcohol counseling which I don’t need because I stopped drinking over six months ago. At times I have been tempted to lie and claim that I am a serious “borracho” so they would start treating me. I am not obese, not diabetic, and don’t have hepatitis if any variety. Must be an alcoholic, right?
I prefer James Thurber's "It's a naive domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption."
8
LOL -- no mention of the normal words such as dry, peppery or spicy? New to wine then yeah?
2
I once asked “what do you have in a red wine that that’s big, loud, assertive, full bodied with legs, but not quite chewy”
They knew exactly what I wanted.
2
Robin Williams did a stand-up comedy special for HBO decades ago. One of his jokes was to pick up a glass of wine, hold it to his ear, and say, "hmm, flaccid, yet absurd."
I spent a lot of time pouring in tasting rooms in Sonoma County. Many of the tourists were there to learn about wine, and were embarrassed when tasting room staff displayed a pretentious attitude. No one likes being made to feel ignorant. I would tell them that taste is highly subjective, and if you like this wine you're tasting, it's a good wine. The trick is to taste enough to get a sense of what you like so you have the tools to discern the qualities of what you're drinking. The whole point was to enjoy getting the education!
Some of this vocabulary makes sense, but linearity? Tense? Lost on most wine drinkers, I'm afraid.
6
Sorry, but my eyes rolled on the first term. Energetic, really?
2
Asimov has done exactly the opposite of what he claims is his goal. He gives us another version of “a vocabulary that does not always convey to the reader what the writer has in mind” with descriptors like linearity and tense. Helpful? Not helpful.
6
You mean it isn't going to work when I quote that old New Yorker cartoon:
"I think you'll be amused by its presumption."
2
I love wine. I love tasting, drinking, learning and sharing with friends and loved ones.
I don’t like pretentiousness and I don’t like highway robbery markups.
My jumping in point was Dorothy Gaiter and John Breche’s WSJ column.
Start discovering what you like and then expand the circle.
Cin cin, salute’, l’chiam, enjoy.
3
Have you ever wondered why folks out west might have less than a positive impression of coastal elites? Well this article would be an example.
Thank you for this interesting view into appreciating taste.
1
One helpful word for talking about wine.
Don't.
1
"A tense wine feels as if it walks a tightrope between forces that threaten to pull it one way or the other, but are so well balanced that the wine never loses its footing."
I have a Ph.D. in philosophy, my wife has one in literary criticism. This is not to tell you how very smart we are, but rather to say that both of us are accustomed to reading all sorts of bamboozlling jargon, unintelligible mumbo-jumbo, and absolute eye-watering, pretentious, meaningless nonsense. But for all of this stuff that both of us are inured to, and have been exasperated by during three decades in our respective fields, none of that mentally pulverizing logarrhea even remotely compares to the truly heroic dimensions of the conceptually empty and cognitively idiotic verbosity found on wine labels and in wine reviews. There is only a single word in Asimov's column that conveys any meaning to me. To wit, "sweet." As for the rest, consign it to the deep. My advice: Drink your wine, enjoy it, and shut up.
11
what about drinkable?
4
A fancy man at a wine bar is one of the more verbally pretentious wine tasters – braggadociously calling-out both the descriptions and the years of the wines he is blind-taste testing – when someone at the end of the bar slides a glass of white wine his way.
He lifts the glass, swirls the wine, sniffs it, and takes a hardy mouthful, swallowing half while swishing the remainder in his mouth. He appears to gag and immediately spits it out and onto the floor while stammering, “That tastes like foul urine!”
Then a voice at the end of the bar says, “Well, now tell me how old I am!”
3
My husband and recently came back from a trip to Texas Hill Country (our wine-making region) where we toured a few wineries and encountered the same issue with wine descriptions. As an amateur, I thought all those fruity references implied that these fruits were added to grapes in the process of fermentation, only to be told by a helpful sales associate that these references describe individual taste sensations of whoever happened to write those descriptions. Good to know. I personally find most wines too acidic/mouth-drying for my taste, but it may be because I lack proper education in wine-tasting/pairing. That, or my palate is just not made for most wines. :)
1
The article which describes 15 useful words in describing wine was wonderful. Thank You for the description. The absence of my favorite " complex" only confirms my amateur status.
For those who wrote that Mr. Asimov's article only confirms the stodgy nature of wine drinkers, I say to them think about 15 descriptive words for your favorite beer. It can be done.
2
Don't we have more important things to consider than word used to describe wine. Drink it and be quiet. If you like it, buy some more. If not, buy another kind.
11
The author's list totally misses the key parameter, the quantumality of the wine. While every member of our species is finely tuned to appreciation of this characteristic of the grape product, few, very few can describe it. Advanced studies of the finer points of reality help, but at the end of the day, sad to say, few of us have evolved to that point. The root problems are insufficiencies in the communication between the limbic system and the frontal cortex.
2
Most of us buy wine to drink it, and not to taste it. And like it or not, wine is 10-14% alcohol. Some might even drink only because of this - but of cause WE are not in that crowd.
On the other hand, you cannot leave out the effect of the alcohol when you drink (as apposed to taste) wine.
Some wines hit you hard, or makes your head swirvel. Other raises you up into higher spheres of universal understanding and well being. As for the last part, I can only recommend an Bordeaux made like they made them in the old days, and which you probably cannot afford (at least on a daily basis :-) As for the former, go the the nearest supermarket.
I think it is a gross error that wine commentators do not report more of this aspect of a wine. For me, it is one of the top factors deciding if a given bottle is something I might want to try another day or not.
1
As someone who has had to select wines for VIP elite guests in Silicon Valley, I'm much more interested in what kind of fruits were added (besides Grapes), where the grapes were grown geographically and the type of wine it is and whether it is dry or sweet (there are a lot of Chardonnays that are too sweet to be labeled Chardonnays).
Forget all these "active" adjectives which belong in writing an essay rather than evaluating a wine.
5
I didn't know that fruit is commonly or even uncommonly added to wine.
3
@Dolly Patterson
That’s a bit of a primitive approach. And other fruit? Seriously?
4
@Sophocles It's not. Fruit and flower terminology is a metaphor, derived from the ester compounds released by chemical reactions in fermentation and aging processes.
Initially thought "Wow, maybe I can talk about wine with some semblance of legitimacy!". By article's end, my hopes were dashed: my unsophisticated palate could never differentiate between stony, pebbly, or rocky aromas, flavors and textures. Most rocks from the same location taste alike to me, independent of size. For real though, can you ever actually discuss ephemeral qualities (energetic, tense, lean (skeletal?), focus, precision, life) without sitting face to face with an expert, glass in hand?
13
I've been drinking fine wines for half a century, starting with a half case of Ch. Lafite Rothschild 61 in 1964. 6 bottles, cost me $85. Ten years later, Americans discovered French wines, and the prices skyrocketed. (I still have a few from that era -- for bragging rights, none are drinkable now.)
Then wine clubs, with top importers and the best wine store in Baltimore, hosting, describing, taking questions.
This "glossary" of supposedly accepted quality descriptors is supreme pretentiousness. Even the most learned and experience professionals never used more that a third of these words.
Nor needed to.
Balderdash.
12
I once drank an impudent wine. It was not yet mature but had overtones of erudite expectation.
One of the reasons people shy away from wine is the downright silly descriptions of the taste. This article is a primer.
21
Does it make the other food better?
The end.
6
I have never heard anyone uses these words to describe wine including Mr. Asimov whose column I read regularly. And if they did use them I would need a cheat sheet to decode, nothing intuitive about them at all.
6
When the waitress a little earlier tonight, asked how did we like the bottle of wine, I said , slightly under the influence "it great, it is alive", using one of the suggested 15 words.
They say if trees falls in the forest but nobody hears it, it is like it did not happen. Is it possible that is you taste wind but do not have words for it, it is like you did not taste it?
3
@Eli The above was obviously written while still slightly inebriated. When asked how did we like the bottle of wine, I should have written:
"it is great! it is alive!"
And below there are more under the influence typos. I should have written instead:
They say if a tree falls in the forest but nobody hears it, it is like it did not happen. Is it possible that if you taste wine but you do not have words to talk about it, it is like you have not tasted it?
The tasting the wind although fairly poetic it was simply fingers typing under the influence.
2
I just had a great merlot whose sumptuous savory undertones mingled sesuously with a nutty and tannin-infused melody of hyperkinesia and schizophrenia. Yummy.
7
I come from a family of winemakers, thus drink a lot of wines with a lot of winemakers. No one talks like this.
I can’t wait to comment at dinner how the wine tastes like a wet sidewalk. I will either earn points or be asked to leave the table until I’m sober.
14
@Jean
remember....it cannot taste like a wet sidewalk, but it can taste "rocky" or "pebbly"....see comment above... :>)
2
Here is the lexicon I use when discussing wine:
1. Cheap
2. Headache inducing
3. Hmm, pretty good
4. Yuck
5. Not bad
26
These terms make a lot of sense, especially because they tend to account for a more complete sensual and intellectual experience of the wine. It can be fun looking for the obscure, detailed metaphorical tastes/scents to use as descriptors, but those tend to create a flat, two-dimensional picture.
Also, to the strangely testy skeptics below, the next time you gather with friends to enjoy your hobby (music, baseball, BBQ), try sitting there quiet for a couple hours and just enjoying it. No? Sound boring? OK, then. Move on.
6
Words that can be linked to objective external comparisons would seem to work better. Cherry, red fruits, ripe berries - even leather, barnyard, or "slate" - at least give speaker and hearer a chance at a common ground. The abstract wiggle words in this column would just result in talking past each other in their own bubbles. Wine-tasting is already scientifically dubious enough. Then again, maybe that's why it hides behind emperor's-new-clothes words.
13
One time, in college, I nailed ten plastic bags of Franzia to the wall of my dining room. I did it with precision and power. My friends came over for a lean yet structured party. We had acquired a child's bike and a yellow football jersey. The goal was to ride the bike from bag to bag, drinking at each stage. The leader--the person who pedaled the length with the greatest precision--would wear the jersey. We called this challenge the Tour de Franzia, the depth and power of which no one had ever seen. After the bags of white zin and Chablis were nearly empty, the riders struggled with any sense of linearity, their power diminished. The mood was tense. Our dear ally, Rory, emerged the energetic victor. He was the life. He was the power. And so concluded our wine experience; the tour was over. Thank you, Mr. Asimov for finally giving language to my sweet bacchanalian experience.
63
@John D.
Are you talking about drinking wine or alcohol? Some drink the alcohol others the wine.
1
On more than one occasion when asked by our server if we would like to order a bottle wine, I have borrowed from Steve Martin. “But no more 1966. Let's splurge. Bring us some fresh wine. The freshest you've got. This year! No more of this old stuff."
They know right then I am a connoisseur.
18
Mostly hilarious. Good for a weekend laugh. Structured but not plush. No notes of bike-saddle and old towel, we are grateful to say. Linear in the sense of using sentences and margins. Mineral as in it rocks. Not very energetic, however. Keep at it, but don't drink the sediment. Amen.
11
I knew a second generation winemaker in Sonoma. When he was tasting wine, he would say "Yummy" when he liked it and "Thank you" when he didn't. That's all I've ever used since...
36
@Lee Perfect! I remember reading an article in the 80's about a woman who took a wine tasting course. She loved it, but when asked about the current wine she was tasting, replied, 'tastes real good to me".
2
@Lee. Yes, perfect. I am from Sonoma and a world of wine and winemakers. That is the way it is in real life. “This is great” or “hmm, not so good.”
3
Every year for decades my Italian born father purchased many boxes of California grown Zinfandel (and some Muscatel) grapes, made his own wine in the cool cellar of our home, drank his own wine, usually with supper in the colder months of the year, gifted a lot of it, sired 11 kids and lived to 92.5 and never used fancy words to describe the experience.
14
Or simply light/bold, smooth/tannic, dry/sweet, and soft/acidic.
Courtesy of my unpretentious Vivino app.
10
@Bryan
Enriching one’s vocabulary, even when”just” in terms of wine, is powerful. I find this article to be helpful because I enjoy learning new ways to describe something I enjoy!
12
“The contradiction so puzzling to the ordinary way of thinking comes from the fact that we have to use language to communicate our inner experience, which in its very nature transcends linguistics.”
-- D.T. Suzuki
9
Mr. Asimov.
Wine adjectives, like any tasting adjectives, should be standardized among professionals (like sommeliers). Obviously, certain beverages pair better with certain foods.
In *any other situation* (such as among friends), straightforward adjectives are best (sweet, yummy, I like this even if it comes from a box, etc.) Keep the conversation light and clear, like a simple white wine.
To refer to any food or beverage tasting "tense" makes me such.
10
1] how sweet/dry, 2] how acid, 3]how aromatic; then on to a single poetic word, but only is three experienced tasters agreed on it [not often].
Well, judging from the comments this taxonomy has a limited future. It get me thinking and any system that avoids “raspberries” is an advance, but there’s too many new ideas for me to grasp. It would be interesting to see a diagram showing how the terms interrelate.
5
Good point. This article is worthy of a diagram. And, could you give us a couple of illustrations of how you would string all these words together in a sentence or paragraph for a specific wine? This article and comments made my weekend; haven’t laughed this much in awhile given Trumpo and his antics. Should have known the solution was to drink more wine with friends.
5
Wine is intended to be tasted, not read about. Sorry Mr. Asimov.
Wines can be divided, roughly, into good and bad. Some are better, others worse. Some work well with particular foods and situations, others work better under different circumstances.
A good sommelier can usually recommend the good options. No amount of reading about a wine can convey the experience of a wine.
Find wines you enjoy, then enjoy them. Don't worry too much about what critics say.
That said, wine is best reserved as a treat. Drinking it too often, in addition to it's health and cognitive consequences, dulls us to the experience of a good wine.
11
@Justin: And yet, the last liquor store I was in only had a small section of bad wine, and there were an amazing number of kinds of good wine. Presumably they were all somewhat different, and plenty of people seem to feel that they can talk about the differences, above and beyond what food they go with. I think your "others work better under different circumstances" is a way of sneaking in the potential for a whole library of commentary and discussion.
My sense is that it's sort of like sports: obviously reading is nothing like fishing or going to a baseball game, and yet people enjoy writing and talking about fishing and baseball, and frankly, you're just not going to be able to stop them.
2
@Justin
How refreshing.
Most useful sentence about wine: I don't drink.
7
@Astasia Pagnoni Oo, you're fun at parties, love.
1
@Astasia Pagnoni: What a pity.
1
Just a "sophisticated" and pretentious way to cop a buzz. It's the same as drinking Pabst or smoking a joint, but it makes one feel smarter and better about themselves. My brother and his wife are "wine experts", but my father and I refer to them as "Frasier and Niles".
16
@Phil
And then we can all meet at Cafe Nervosa for lattes! I miss that show.
@Phil
I don't think most people who drink wine do so to cop a buzz. There's way cheaper and more effective ways to do that. Wine is best as an accompaniment to food.
As for Pabst, I would drink dog urine before I would drink that.
3
@Phil some of us prefer wine more than beer or a joint. It’s not intended to make others feel less than. It’s not about you. (Very likely neither is your relatives’ affection for wine.)
3
What about:
Pesticide-free
No preservatives
No sulfites.
Organic.
Natural.
20
@Astasia Pagnoni
There is new attention to “natural” wines. I.e. wines made without additives, such as with those sulfites, added to those orange-hued apricots, preserved to infinite life. A new book recommends small vineyards in France, and to look for dregs, the lee, so called. “Natural Wine for the People” is the title. Avoiding a sulfite reaction has caused me to avoid all wines, for now. Accurate labeling is needed.
1
These terms come from an effort to personify wine for some reason.
3
Unfortunately, the biggest problem with wine lingo is the hyperbole. I find I am much more likely to taste the flavors used to describe beer than the ones for wine. I think it's because the beer is less hyped, although give it 10 years and no doubt beer will be as opaque as wine. But let's face it, none of the descriptions ever mention negative words, like 'sour' or 'bitter' despite the fact plenty of people like those flavors in moderstion.
5
well that certainly cleared things up. Now nobody can claim that wine experts are obtuse. There is power and energy in their linear verbiage reminiscent of the effervescence experienced while inebriated.
85
I count at least 13 eyerolls/forehead slaps.
85
“It’s a naive domestic Burgundy without any breeding, but I think you will be amused by its presumption.”
P.S.: You forgot ‘hedonistic fruit bomb’ and ‘killer juice.’
30
Lush. That's what I am after a plush, tense, focused, alive, energetic, lean, linear bottle or two.
11
Come on, people. If you're not a professional critic, buyer, seller, or sommelier, you don't need ANY language that isn't made up on the spot.
Wine is made for enjoyment.
Buy 'em and try 'em.
38
Exactly. My brother and sister-in-law are considered by their friends to be “wine experts.” Their advice? “Drink a lot of wine. Try a bunch of different ones. Remember the ones you like.”
3
Thanks for the helpful article. In reference to the article in Wine Wankers that you link to, I've always been baffled by the various descriptions such as black current, peach, tobacco, coffee and floral all in the same bottle. Are these flavors actually discernible or are they a kind of ritual incantation that some reviewers feel they must use, along with words such as balanced or young etc.? Put differently, do people who variously use the words plummy, jammy, cherry or dark current really discern the differences among these flavors? Are these descriptions taught in classes? Thanks.
6
I would add other words like “friendly”, when is a likeable wine in the sense that it would appeal to non drinkers while drinkers can still enjoy it. Also gentleness, applied to soft bodied wines that suit a more relaxing mood.
When I try to explain wines to my friends, I tend to use words that they can easily understand what I’m trying to convey.
8
Joe Gru has it right, basically. The article shows the inherent futility of communicating in words the physical characteristics of taste unless the person you are speaking with is sitting there tasting with you the same wine. In that situation, you can both hope to agree to label in the same terms the physical phenomena you sense. But it's not easy.
10
I guess we have moved on from smooth, chewy, and legs.
13
@Chrisinauburn
Indeed! You forgot “fruit forward” and “jammy”.
Sláinte.
2
I will have fun when drinking wine now with these concepts in mind instead of my literal terms- thanks Eric!
1
@Susan
Thank you for the grateful comment. So many cynical, holier than thou ones. Lighten up, people.
3
I like this list a lot, and in my own job selling wine I often use many of these. My only slight dispute is that I disagree with Eric's implication that "energy" needs to connote "high"-energy traits such as liveliness, vivacity, youthfulness, etc. I love wines that are snappy and electric, but I also love wines whose energy, even if they have pronounced acidity, is calm, tranquil, relaxed, languid, etc. Those, too, are characteristics of the energy that some wines produce and express. Not to mention, a given wine (e.g. recent-vintage Riesling or Chenin Blanc or Beaujolais or Mencia) can have a lively energy when young but evolve over years into something with a much more serene "energy".
7
The way responses to this article address language more than wine says a lot about the range of anxieties connected with wine-drinking. The idea that most wine-language is "figurative" plays off against a need for concreteness ("just tell me what I should expect") in a way that exposes complex insecurities that, in turn, point to a variety of ways in which wine-drinking fits into people's lives. My father drank wine because he knew and liked the local farmers who made it--and perhaps to get a little drunk. When I was very young I drank it because it felt like "a step up"; and then, also as a young man, for its connection with romance, seductions, passions. Later yet, it became a social ritual. As an older person, I'm far removed from all that; mostly it makes a great gift. For people reading here, wine is part of life--maybe a big part, maybe not. For all the generosity of the gesture of the article, a lexicon can't begin to get at the great range of confusions and insecurities that bring people to the point of parsing labels, reading reviews, and stumbling helplessly through wine stores. It would be more useful to actually confront the poetry of their relationship with wine, rather than its dismal prose. (See, for example, Dali's beautiful but somewhat goofy book, The Wines of Gala. It's still worth a reading.)
13
Kindly advise: What is the word for a wine that makes the mouth pucker, and not in a good way?
6
@Karin K
pucker-ish
3
@Karin K
"Tannic beast" ?
12
@Karin K There is a whole set of words--starting with 'this wine has turned...'
Your waiter should then offer to replace it. Unless you're at home, in which case you can use it in the place of vinegar (which is precisely what it is).
2
Eye roll...
14
We can also apply the word “wordy” to wines. E.g., “This wine is remarkably wordy. It gives rise to so many words. Seemingly hundreds of words are coming to mind. The wine goes in, the words come out! Of course it’s a Rhône red, they’re always among the wordiest of wines.”
24
This is way over the top. Why do we keep trying to make drinking wine an elitist experience.
How about “do you like the wine or not”.
The price point of the wines that most people drink are so homogenized that these descriptors are meaningless. If i’m Feeling particularly snarky with the learned, i use the phrase...“yes..it has overtones of groundhog with a dead squirrel finish”.
Nice effort, though, i doubt most people would find them “helpful”.
18
@Joe Gru
There is nothing elitist about expanding one’s lexicon. JFC.
7
@Left Coast Ha! Ha! It appears that many reviewers were more harsh than me!
Guys! Chill. Like I posted previously, wine is like astronomy: the more you explore, the more you learn and hence a new vocabulary to express your experiences.
13
@Charles
Wine is nothing like astronomy. One is made from fermented grapes, the other is the study of celestial bodies in the universe.
1
Very helpful list!
My biggest insight working in a general, mass market retail shop is how many people either love "sweet" wines or ask for wines that are not "sweet". For the ones who love sweet wines they want a wine with sugar, most of the time. For the ones who say they don't want a wine that is sweet, or "this wine is too sweet" it can be very hard to decode. Most of the time they just mean fruity. The other word is "smooth" most of the time they mean either medium to low acid, medium to low tannins but not always.
Your list is really helpful for writing but there needs to be a list to decode how consumers ( middle market) talk about wines because I sometimes feel I am in opposite world. I am taught and I write one way, then I go into the shop and have to start decoding what they are asking for. I am getting better with time. My goal is just to get them a wine they go home and are happy with.
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Nice article and worthwhile effort, which I think everybody who is serious about wine should do for him/herself. But this requires years of experience and dedication to wine.
Another useful effort in the same direction was made by Terry Theise in his book "Reading between the wines". Here is his list of what matters in wine flavors:
Clarity
Distinctiveness
Grace
Balance
Deliciousness
Complexity
Modesty
Persistence
Paradox
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@Gilberto Colangelo
Modesty? Persistence? Paradox? Tell me more.
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nice to see 'sweet' show up; but what happened to 'oak', 'astringent', 'oxidative', 'barnyard', 'Sulphur stink', 'complex', 'balanced', 'oxidative', 'hint of sherry'(from film yeast), 'varietal', 'typical' - and more.
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Okay, why is "lush" not included?
Although it is a relief that "gravel" is not there.
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@Chauncey Gardner
Maybe "lush" would come off as pejorative to a subset of wine drinkers?
My favorite from a review some years back: "Well-muscled." Oy.
Like watching a baseball game for the first time on television, with the announcer using all manner of words to describe the nuance or subtle actions in play by play, these suggested wine terms can also be bewildering to a novice. It takes time (years!)to soak it in and make that connection, to “get into the zone, “ when it finally begins to click and make sense. Trying to explain baseball to my French cousins is not an easy proposition. Explaining wine to my Oklahoma ranching American in-laws isn’t any easier!
I connect with what Eric has shared here, as I’ve been around wine all my life and am comfortable speaking in those very terms he’s suggesting. But I don’t believe he has been successful in reaching out and touching the lowest common denominator, the bewildered wine novice. I most certainly applaud his efforts here, but in my view, there still needs to be some tinkering, toying, paring-down and simplifying the approach. Perhaps a “less is more” attempt might be more successful in sparking that initial connection. After all, it only takes a spark to start a fire.
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I find many of these terms helpful in my own understanding about wine. How I talk about wine depends on whom I am with at the time. I am currently with my wife at a small chateau in Beaujolais (not the wine regions) where a number of classical musicians have gathered to play together. Since I am a wine blogger, I was selected to bring the wine. A couple of the attendees (from France, Germany, Switzerland, and the UK) are into wine, but most are not. The talk here is about music for the most part. I have had a couple of good conversations about wine where I might use some of these terms, or others more akin to tasting notes. But with this group, the wine is either red or white, good or not so good. I don't think there is a "one size fits all" way of describing wine. Such is life. But I applaud Eric Asimov for being a consistent voice for the positive aspects of wine and wine enjoyment and for being a bridge for many from being wine novices to something more.
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Another term I have seen used "austere". That means a wine that is not very good, but because it comes from a famed vineyard or Chateau, the critics have to use a euphemism and so they came up with austere. Avoid it
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AWESOME ARTICLE! As a marketer working in the Napa Valley, at times writing tasting notes is absolutely challenging as the majority of vintages of particular varietal have the same common "fruit" and "aroma" descriptors regardless of the vintage (obviously). Thank you for the insight into new avenues of descriptors.
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I would like to see an article about the difference between drinking and tasting of wine, particularly with commentary on how the pleasures of each may conflict with the other.
So many live things seem to me badly represented by language which seems best at representing thoughts/abstractions. (Except of course for poetry, but that is arguably a construction from language itself rather than a representation outside itself.)
3
Someone once said that the difference between drinking and tasting is simply paying attention! I think that's a good way to start.
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@Ed Franceschini
Hearing versus listening.
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An energetic little wine featuring precision, depth, and mineral in the nose. This wine exhibits power and life in the body showcasing a tense linearity of a lean structure throughout. The finish brings focus to a plush, savory, sweet conclusion. Three Stars.
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@bb
Sir,
Indeed an articulate description of the Bonneau du Martray - Corton-Charlemagne 'Grand Cru' 1976.
Chapeau!
( nix the "little")
6
I'm not a wine expert. I don't think I've ever described a wine in emotional terms like "tense," and I don't think I'd understand what that meant if someone said it to me. I can only describe my perception of how it affects my taste buds. Is it plummy? (My favorite in a red.) Crisp? Smooth? Harsh?
I did once describe the flavor of a delicious 1986 Chateau Lafite Rothschild, which I had the privilege of drinking in 2006, as "crushed rubies." That is, perhaps, as fanciful (and as fancy) as I'll ever get.
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@janeqpublicnyc
My compliments on the best description offered today;
with just a touch of jade green envy.
2
I appreciate the effort but I don’t think those terms are useful. Maybe the issue is that the reader has to have some basic knowledge / experience - in the absence of such knowledge, the best efforts may not be good enough. To illustrate - suppose that a reader knows what - for example - a good Chianti typically tastes like. It will be possible to describe the taste of a Brunello to that reader, from that departure point (eg, “this wine tastes like a smooth version of Chianti..”). But in the absence of a strong “baseline” knowledge, I think that unfortunately the task of describing wines becomes nearly impossible.
32
This was very useful. Thanks for publishing it.
6
I enjoy drinking wine but to me these terms like “precision” and “linearity” are rather pretentious.
82
God bless you Eric that you (and others) can be into wine like this. I envy you.
To me after the first glass everything you write about goes out the window and my main concern is not going to the third glass.
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@Paul but it’s after the third glass that things get fun!
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@Paul
I had this experience with single malt scotch.
@Paul why even bother reading the article when you clearly have no true interest in learning about wine? These comments are very strange to me; seems like I'm reading comments from college kids. If you don't like wine, or Eric...don't read. Simple.
2
"Few things are as maddening or as elusive as trying to convey the character of a wine ..." -- How very true! Perhaps it would be better to say nothing, bearing in mind that "silence is golden". Buy and drink your wine, you will either love it, or grind your teeth in disappointment.
2
The artist shows three ways of holding a wine glass.
I think that two are wrong, and the only correct one is the bearded man in the back.
2
@Tuvw Xyz None of them has it right. A goblet should be held only by the stem, close to the base. This avoids fingerprints on the bowl and, more importantly, warming the wine.
It it's in a can, however...
6
I, as always, appreciate Eric's use of precise and evocative language to describe wine, thereby giving indications and guidelines to those seeking more articulated clarity about it. I say indications and guidelines because they are meant to point us in a certain direction where we can then explore for ourselves and create new personal descriptions if we wish that are based on our own experiences. Of course we also need to factor in the food with which each wine will be drunk and hopefully enjoyed. The right combination of edible and drinkable elements, especially those with high quality ingredients and careful preparation (in the cellar as well as kitchen) can transform the nature of both into an almost wordless experience!
4
These days, particularly in wine country, I ask for ‘fruit backwards.’... low alcohol blended varieties to pair with food, an old-school or old world style.
Used to be called ‘wine’.
21
@Woodrat how about adding 'shy and unassuming'(opposite of 'bold') or 'ten year old oak, please' - and similar.
1
Language is meant to communicate. While the article attempts to define these terms, the question is whether two people given these definitions and a level of experience would agree on the presence and level of the attributes mentioned. On that score, the verdict is out. Without clear physical references to anchor their meaning, these terms may fail to meet the test of what we expect from a descriptive vocabulary.
18
How about an article on 15 words to use when you are asking about wine? I stumble a lot here, despite having some pretty specific likes and dislikes, and am always lost at a wine shop!
10
@Nandini Sankar here you go - 15 words to use when you are asking about wine:
Is it dry or is it fruity?
How much is it?
Is there a discount?
A wine was once described to me by a merchant as redolant of blackberries and chocolate with a hint of road tar after which I gave up drinking. It was like an ear worm; all I kept tasting was road tar.
20
Wine writing is horrendous. I am a relatively young (in my mid 30s) and a neophyte to the world of enjoying wine, and the vocabulary of wine criticism is all but useless to me. Only about 5 of these terms convey anything remotely concrete about the way a wine tastes, smells and feels. The rest are hazy evocations of the emotional state of the author and so subjective that they completely fail to communicate anything. Leave poetry to poets, and write clearly and simply about wine. I want to know whether I'll like a wine or not, and the layers of abstraction and mystery pushed in guides like this make it impossible for me to know what to actually ask for and identify why I liked another bottle. I appreciate that we must rely on metaphor and simile to communicate some of the nuances of flavor and odor. However, unless it's being shot out of a spray gun into my mouth, it's hard to see how wine would feel propulsive. Wine is not a mystery, and rhapsodizing about it as a transcendental mystical experience and not a (humble, delicious) drink just leads to people like me thinking we lack the capacity to understand and enjoy it. Telling me a wine is tense, precise, energetic and alive tells me everything about you, and almost nothing about the wine.
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@Max
Preach, brother (and I have been enjoying wine twice as long as you)!
I do love Eric, very much enjoy reading his columns and have enjoyed his wine school. He writes artfully and is often accessible-- I have learned a lot.
However, I have always thought there was more than enough room for an everyday, more concise, less tortured wine vocabulary to co-exist with the more traditional, but (for me) often tedious and elusive language (I like great literature, but I also like a quality beach read}. This was not it, but I am a little more forgiving: I appreciate his effort and acknowledgment of the dilemma. Now, if Eric can go back and try again....
25
@Max Thank you Max for your astute observations on just another version of wine speak. Enough to make my eyes roll out of their sockets.
11
@Max Hey check out my friend Marnie Old's book Wine: A Tasting Course... it's fun, irreverant, unpretentious (like her), great graphics. I think you'd really enjoy it! Wine Folly by Madeline Puckett is a great blog too. Cheers to you!
6
While these are helpful and I enjoy the article, I think it's unlikely that I could praise a wine's linearity without some eye rolls.
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