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Health & Fitness

Using the Right Words to Find the Right Wine

"Oaky." "Dry" "Fruity." The more words you can find to describe the wine you are searching for the better a wine store can help you find that wine.

"I don’t like sweet wines." "I like buttery wines."  "I don’t like wines that make me go…(lips puckered and eyes squinty)."  "I like fruity reds."

When you go into a wine store to look for a bottle of wine do you know what you want?  If you are looking for a Chardonnay there are a lot to choose from.  Chardonnays that are oaky, buttery, or steely; some that have crisp acidity, or are fullbodied; and don’t forget those that have flavor characteristics of citrus fruit, tropical fruit, grassiness or stone fruit. Perhaps you are looking for a red wine? Red wines can be bold, fruit forward, tannic, even highly acidic. They might show with flavors of dusty cherry, blackberries or blueberries on the nose.  

Do YOU know what you like in a wine? Do you know what wines match the descriptions you give? Wine tasting is subjective. As is what you like in a wine.  Sometimes it is really hard to tell exactly what it is that you like in a wine that you have tried. 

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Not everyone tastes wine like I do. I take my time, swirling the glass, smelling it, swirling it yet again. And again. At times I will just sit, smell and swirl for quite a while. Then I sip the wine, slurping it to incorporate some air in there and swishing it around my mouth. I know…that doesn’t bring up the most pleasant of pictures.  But, I do it. I’ll sip again. And then (you know this if you have tasted with me) I might say a few things that come to my mind about the wine. “Oaky.”  “Light citrus.” Another sniff, another sip. “Pencil shavings.”  “Medium bodied.”  And so on. After all of that I might even say that I don’t care for it! 

Even if you are not sure of what pencil shavings or that mouth-puckering face means in a wine, just that you smell it and feel it, you are on the right track of describing what you do and don’t like in a wine. For me pencil shavings is the smell of some oak aging and that mouth puckering feeling is a brisk acidity found in some wines.  

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The point of all of the sniffing, swirling, talking aloud and slurping for me is to find out what I find in the wine, and if I like all of those aromas and tastes together.  When a customer comes into looking for a wine it is always helpful when they can give me some idea of what they like. If they are looking for a crisp, citrusy and zesty white wine I will then steer them towards a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, which encompasses all of those qualities. When they ask for a red wine that is a bit fruity, easy drinking and not overly tannic I may pick out a Washington State Cabernet which will easily fit that profile.

The more words you can find to describe that perfect wine the closer you are to locating it! Next time you taste some wine or try a new one out at a restaurant think about all of the different things in that glass of wine that you enjoy…and what you don’t. You will be on your way to describing and finding your perfect bottle of wine in no time at all!

À votre santé!

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