jargon

I'm pretty sure that Dale meant that older barrels impart LESS direct oak flavors. The flavor of new oak has several forms: American oak often gives a vanilla-like flavor to wine, whereas French oak often gives flavors akin to baking spices (cinnamon and nutmeg, mostly). If the oak has been toasted, you also get toast-like flavors, and all oak imparts tannins to wine (oak is HUGELY tannic -- ever tried eating an acorn?)

The words you mention, Rich, describe lots of different things:

"earthy" and "mineral" describe smells. Most of what we get from wine is from what we smell (even what we taste is mostly smelled). So, don't you know what freshly turned earth or forest floor smells like? What hot rocks smell like? That's what those terms reference.

"heavy," "light," "body" and "structure" have to do with mouth feel, the tactile sensation of having the wine in your mouth. A milkshake feels thicker in the mouth than a cup of tea, right? It would be a heavier beverage. More subtly, coffee is usually a heavier beverage than tea. The "body" of a wine describes how thick and heavy it feels. Full body = big and thick; light body = thin and light.

"tannic" is also a tactile term. In the extreme, tannins make your mouth pucker, but they also impart a sense of roughness to the mouthfeel and also can contribute to the body of the wine. Most young red wines will have some amount of tannic feel to them, but that fades with time, which is why we age some red wines before drinking them. Some people _do_ seem to like the feel of tannic red wines, though (they do go well with steak, f'rinstance).

"acidic" has to do with how crisp or soft the wine seems. It has a lot to do with the aftertaste. A crisp, acidic wine will leave little aftertaste, whereas a soft, non-acidic wine will have a mouth-coating feel to it. Think about the differences in aftertaste between milk (soft) and tea or coffee (acidic).

For a more detailed discussion of these and other terms, you might consider getting a book like Hugh Johnson's "Pocket Wine Book" (cost: $10 from Amazon) which has a detailed glossary of wine terms as well as a lot of other useful information about wine.

HTH Mark Lipton

yes, typing too fast. Typically new oak barrels can impart a lot of oak flavors, barrels used once less, twice even less, after that virtually none. Smaller barrels have more surface area compared to volume, so typically even new foudres or botti (often 1000 liters or much more) would give less oak than new barriques (225 liters).

A good book is an excellent idea. The Johnson pocket is good, but you could also try the Dummies series, The Wine Bible, or Andrea Immers, all of which devote pages to each of these subjects.

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But do they explain the word "finesse", which one often sees in UK reviews? Graham

| > I'm pretty sure that Dale meant that older barrels impart LESS direct | > oak flavors. | | yes, typing too fast. Typically new oak barrels can impart a lot of | oak flavors, barrels used once less, twice even less, after that | virtually none. Smaller barrels have more surface area compared to | volume, so typically even new foudres or botti (often 1000 liters or | much more) would give less oak than new barriques (225 liters). | | A good book is an excellent idea. The Johnson pocket is good, but you | could also try the Dummies series, The Wine Bible, or Andrea Immers, | all of which devote pages to each of these subjects. | ----------------------------------------------------------- | | But do they explain the word "finesse", which one often sees in UK reviews? | Graham | |

I'd like to know about another, newish wine term that is gaining currency: what is a reductive wine? how would I identify it in a wine?

cheers greybeard

"RichD" skrev i melding news: snipped-for-privacy@y28g2000prd.googlegroups.com...

Mineral: Think of the smell you get when you bang two stones together Earth: Think of the smell of wet soil after rain (depends on where you live, I think)

A light wine example is an ordinary red Beaujolais or a white vinho verde from Portugal - simple and refreshing and easy to drink A heavy wine would be a red Amarone from Italy or a Zinfandel from California - viscous and alcoholic with much taste. Simple: Onedimensional, short Complex: Layers of taste, changing all the time, long lasting and varying sensation in mouth Body: Mouthfilling, chewy Structure: The combination of various parts of the wine - smell, taste, texture, complexity. A well structured wine is where the parts form a harmonious whole.

Tannins are astringent. Eat banana peels. Acids are sour. Eat lemons.

Tannic wines are mostly red ones. They will often need maturing to round off, in a few cases up to 15-20 years... Tannins are often desired as being the backbone of a wine structure. Some, like me, do appreciate tannic wines, others prefer softer wines. Acid wines are often white ones. Acids often diminish during storage and thus you'll find more acids with younger whites with the result being a sensation of freshness, even zing. Sweet whites will often need a high degree of acidity to be considered balanced (well structured :-). A high acidity is

Right. However, new oak barrels flavor wine very much more strongly. In Europe barrels were used and reused for long times and so only a small part of the wine saw new barrels. The blended end result would then have only a moderate influence from oak. In the US, notably, oak was taken as a quality marker and so the public looked for wines with a heavy oak taste to the extent that some wine makers not only used all new barrels but also filled up with oak wood chippings... (that is not quite true... it was steel tanks that received wood chips :-) Btw, most ordinary wine sees little oak wood but are fermented in steel tanks. The use of oak barrels has largely disappeared in Germany, the preference being for maximum fruitiness in all wines, up to the expensivest ones.

Fortunately, the overly heavyhanded use of oak so common in the 1980ies has diminished... For some wines oak still is necessary to give a desired structure and backbone.

hth Anders

graham wrote on Wed, 26 Aug 2009 16:09:21 -0600:

When I was last in London, I saw (expensive) wine-tasting kits with vials of liquids for various tasters' terms like "black-currant", "oaked" etc. As I write this, I think I remember this was at a place called "Vinopolis", the wine museum.

I still think that the definition of finesse in the Chambers Dictionary sums it up perfectly "subtle intention of design".

A wine with finesse is subtle, balanced and beautiful rather than loud, brash and in your face.

Think Chanel's little black dress or Michael Broadbent's tailor. :-)

James

Has anyone read about the piles of decomposing algae on the French beaches of Brittany this summer? They are deadly. Farmers are using too much nitrogen fertilizer, and the runoff from rain is causing enormous algae blooms off the beaches, and when the algae is washed ashore, it forms piles which release enormous quantities of hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S), which has actually killed several people. ____________________________________________________

The death of one horse has been blamed on the decomposing seaweed but AFAIAA, no humans have died.

Environmentalists (who are rarely good scientisits, IME, and who are fond of hyperbole) have blamed it on intensive livestock operations in Brittany, not overuse of fertilisers.

However, one has to be careful of media hype. 35 years ago, the eutropification of Lake Michigan was blamed on farmers using too much fertiliser. However, it was pointed out that the population along the shores of the lake had increased greatly during the century and human sewage was at least equally the cause - but that didn't get much coverage. Graham

You are off topic...

DaleW wrote on Tue, 1 Sep 2009 12:08:35 -0700 (PDT):

As someone whose eating was made possible in graduate school by the position of part-time instructor teaching analytical chemistry, may I say that I still rather like the smell of hydrogen sulfide. On the other hand, I find it inappropriate in wine and I don't much like it as evidenced by hing in Indian food (Teufelsdreck in German).