Basic wine question...

Could be literally vinegar. But I doubt it as you would not get it on many wines, and it is generally regarded as a fault.

All wines have some acidity, but not the acetic acid of vinegar. I suspect you just don't like the more acidic wines.

Acidity? Tannin? It's very hard to be sure without knowing (and tasting) some specific wines that you feel have such a taste and some specific wines that don't.

Before of believing too much of such descriptions. In most cases, it's just advertising hype.

The two wines were clearly of very different styles, and you like the style of the first, but not the second. That doesn't mean that you might not like some other wine with a similar description.

We all have different tastes and like different sorts of wines. And as we gain more experience, our tastes often change. What you should do is take note of what wines you like and which you don't like, and over time, you will start to see patterns evolving.

But don't start out by assuming that because a wine you didn't like is made from a particular grape, you don't like that grape. It may be that you don't like that winery, or that vintage, or that you drank the wine too young, or too old, or a host of other things. It takes experience with lots of wines to be able to determine what your likes and dislikes are.

Ken Blake

Is there a simple way one can learn/distinguish between acidic or tannic; i.e., acidic will taste like so-and-so; and tannic will taste like so-and-so; or leaves a certain sensation in your mouth, etc.

Thanks. Dee

Tannin = try chewing on banana skins, or drinking tea that has been sitting around for an hour; astrinngent, mouth-drying feeling

Acidity = lemon juice, unripe fruit like apples, sour milk, sour anything.

Thank you all very much. I think it is a kind of sour taste so I will try to avoid wines that say "acidic" and try to find ones that are sweet and see how that goes.

thanks again Eric

The main effect of tannin is astringency. Astringency is not a taste at all, but the effect of the tannins reacting with the protein in your saliva. This gives a mouth-drying effect, and reduces the friction between you teeth and gums. Take a good mouthful of wine, swill it round your mouth, and note the feeling between your teeth and gums.

Acidity is, err, well, acidic. It's in any fruit that is not fully ripe. And all limes and lemons. Sip some lemon juice and note where on your tongue you can taste the acid. With most people it is on the side of the tongue towards the front. When you drink wine, attend to that area of the tongue.

That's the basic story. And if you concentrate on that you can't go far wrong. It's not the full story though, as tannins can also taste bitter, and acidity can add to astrigency.

Might be worth asking your wine merchant for examples of wines high in acidity and/or tannin. A lot of new world wines, particularly at the cheaper end of the market are low in both.

OK. But bear in mind that if you're drinking wine with food, you may find that wines with higher acidity go better.

Hmm - Steve, I prefer dry wines. Would that be opposite of 'sweet'?

Is it only dry wines that would be acidic or tannic; or would sweet wines have these characteristics as well?

Trying to get a handle on this. Thanks. Dee

That would depend much on the foods being served.

Acidity is basically sourness. Because the word "sourness" puts people off, most wines are described in terms of acidity instead.

To learn the taste of tannin, drink very strong tea, or chew on grape leaves.

Sweet is not the opposite of acid. Both can be present in a wine at the same time. As a matter of fact, sweet wines need extra acidity to balance the sugar. Otherwise they taste cloying.

I don't think you'll find any wines that say "acidic," because the word used that way by itself is negative, and implies too *much* acidity. Good wine is a balance between many different components and acidity is one of them. Too little acidity makes a wine taste flabby and dull. Too much makes it taste sour. You shouldn't avoid acidity, but try to find wines where the acidity is in balance with everything else.

Over and above that, with the exception of a few dessert wines like port, almost all red table wines are dry, not sweet, unless they are very cheap and poor in quality.

And a final comment: again, I caution you not to simply believe whatever it says on the label. Many wineries, especially when they are marketing inexpensive wine to a large consumer market, write what they believe their market wants to hear; it is not necessarily anything approaching the truth. As a single example, I've tasted numerous cheap wines described as dry, that were actually sweet.

LOL! How did I come up with "grape leaves"? I meant grape *skins*, of course.

A very good example of a sweet wine that can be very tannic is young vintage port. It can take many years for a vintage port to mature, a large amount of sediment to form, and for tannins to reduce enough in the liquid part of the wine. Much of the tannin apparently ends up in the sediment after some rather complex and slow chemical reactions.

A very good example of a very sweet wine that also can be very acid is a Riesling Eiswein made in some of the colder regions of Germany such as the Saar. It can have much of the acid attack of biting into the flesh of a lemon, yet can also be extremely sweet. Think of making lemonade with very much sugar, but from undiluted lemon juice for a crude comparison.

But port is pretty much the only common example. After that you struggle to find good quality sweet red wines. There are a few others made in the Port style, and Recioto della Valpolicella, and that is about it.

That's an extreme example, but in fact all good sweet wines have high acidity.

Exactly. No more, no less.

But beware.

There is a recent fashion for "dry wines", which means that a lot of people who actually like a little sweetness declare themselves to be dry-wine drinkers. This has resulted in some of the big brands marketing "dry" wines that are actually off-dry (i.e. have a little sugar).

Sometimes, also wines can taste a little sweet, but that sweet effect comes from the ripe fruit flavours, and there is acuallya very low sugar content.

Could be. It is practically impossible to make generalisations with wine.

But I am struggling to think of an example of wine with low or medium-low acidity thar would go better with any food than one with at least a bit more acidity.

A lot of people find acidity hugely appealing, when balanced with other flavors.

As an experiment, ask your local wine merchant for a sauvignon blanc which balances high acidity with fruitiness (there are lots of candidates for this from France and New Zealand). And then drink it with, say, a nice piece of salmon in cream sauce (or just grilled salmon for that matter). I'm making my own mouth water.

Anyway, the point I'm making is that in the right context (when balanced by other factors in the wine, or in the accompanying food) acidity can be very appealing. Depending on what you like, of course!

Yes. I often find people confusing "fruity" with "sweet." An easy way to distinguish (if it is important to the taster to do so) is to taste the wine while blocking your nose. If it is sweet, you'll be able to tell, because blocking your nose doesn't stop you from detecting the sweetness (on your tongue) but makes it hard to detect the fruit flavors.

Could be the wine was oxidized after sitting around for a day or two, opened.