3 Wine Tasting Jargons: Art of Speaking Wine

THURSDAY, AUGUST 20, 19981

By Ken Kim Times Wine Writer

The Korea Times

ast fall, I had an opportunity to attend a wine class offered by the University of California at Berkeley on what's known as "blind-tasting." You may wonder why such an internationally famous school has anything to do with wine, but actually, it is a very popular course and sometimes there's even a waiting list to get in. The course, the only one at the university, mainly consisted of tasting wine and note-taking. The students were all given sheets with scores of tasting terms which the students could use to describe the wine. The students, thus, were busy sipping wine and contemplating which terms to use in their descriptions.

Once the tasting was done, the whole class had a discussion on each other's notes, comparing and contrasting their taste buds' experience. The selected group of words reserved for accurately characterizing wine made wine experts out of evezyone who participated. Today, I would like to share some of the terms used by professionals so that if you are ever in a situation in which you want to describe the wine you are drinking, you will not be tongue-tied. Ideally, the vocabulary will also keep you from feeling intimidated by folks who seem to know all

the jargon. The terms are basically divided into two groups: first, the taste itself and, second, the aroma and flavor. The taste refers to the sensing perception and the other is used to more specifically describe the perception by making references to other things. Your sensing perception cannot properly function unless you can feel the aroma first, so the aroma is very important for tasting and getting the proper flavor of the wine. There are approximately 150 terms, half of which describe the taste and

half of which describe the aroma and flavor. Today, I will list many of the terms. Of course, you may have your own terms that differ to varying degrees from the ones listed above. But the above list consists of the terms most frequently used by connoisseurs and wine judges and offers a good place to start. So the next time you hear expressions like wine having a "tropical fruit aroma with creamy vanilla" or having a "complex black cherry and plum flavor" and so on, you will know exactly what the speaker is talking about and you can either agree with them or impress them with your own command of the wine-tasting language. In my next column, I will offer the second part of the list which deals with the aroma and flavor part of wine tasting.

Explanation
Aggressive Aromatic Astringent Austere Baked Beefy Course Creamy Crisp Dense Dried Out Earthy Elegant Fat Finesse Firm Flabby Flat Fleshy Forward Fragrant Green Grip Hard Heavy Herby Hollow Hot Jam my Lean Long Meaty Wine is still young and needs more aging Plenty of smell, often spicy and/or flowery Mouth-puckering tannins Same as Aggressive Lack of freshness and of grape fruit flavor Full-bodied and/or well balanced Wine without complexity Used when it tastes like vanilla or butter Very refreshing white wine Complex and well balanced No grape flavor at all, usually in very old wine Mineral taste Well-balanced wine Wine with high glycerol or sugar Usually refers to a good quality wine High tannin, but still good Lack of acidity, like water Watery wine due to lack of freshness and acidity Wine with no edge Older taste than you expected Usually flowery wine Young wine Too much tannin Too much tannin and acid Very dry (too much alcohol) Reminiscent of grass and herbs No after-taste Balance of alcohol is too high No fruit flavor Too plain Good after-taste Rich and full-bodied wine

Terms
Mouth-filing Neutral Oily Penetrating Perfumed Rich Robust Rough Round Scented Sharp Short Silky Simple Smooth Soft Solid Sour Spritz Stalky Steely Stewed Stringy Structure Supple Tangy Thin Tough Velvety Watery Woody Zesty

Explanation
Well-balanced wine Lack of standout aroma and flavor Buttery wine, usually in white wine Intense aroma and flavor Flowery wine Has the depth of flavor Standout wine to describe red wine Basic young wine Wine without character Floral wine Slightly high acid in white wine No after taste Good quality wine Good table wine Mid-level acid and tannin Medium-bodied wine Full bodied wine Either too much acid or vinegar Presence of carbon dioxide, usually in young wine Bitter taste High acidity in white wine Not fresh Plain Balance among acid, alcohol and sugar Smooth Lively after taste Lacking flavor High tannin Silky Thin Taste of old barrel Freshness

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