Earlier in this series we mentioned that it`s not necessary to describe wine by comparing it to all sorts of other things (afterall, a cheeseburger tastes like a cheeseburger and not hints of summer rain) but many do and it can be fun.
There are thousands of different terms people use to describe wine (the taste, smell look and feel) – there are no firm rules here. Knowing a list of common terms may help you build your own vocabulary – here’s a starting point that you can be liberal by adding to (printing a list like this and scanning it when you taste a wine can also help you learn the terms and the contents of your glass faster). I have stayed away from terms that require a wine dictionary (Bernard Klem wrote one named WineSpeak which lists over 36,000 such terms – the digital copy can be purchased here):
- acetic
- apple
- aroma
- big
- black current
- burnt
- balanced
- bitter
- bright
- cat pee (couldn`t resist – slight amonia-type smell; not a bad thing)
- cedar
- cherry
- clear
- cloudy
- corky
- crisp
- delicate
- earthy
- flat
- flinty
- fresh
- gassy
- hard
- hot
- light
- mature
- metallic
- moldy
- nutty
- peppery
- petrol (`diesel` used in North America on occasion to describe this faint smell)
- pruney
- rich
- smoky
- sulfury
- sweet
- tart
- tobacco
- vanilla
- woody
- yeasty
- young
I`m hoping that the list above liberates some to use any term that comes to mind -with lists of more than 30,000 terms this is more about an art than a science. Describing a wine is not about getting the `right`answer – your perception is as accurate as the next taster.
