What Balance!

Hello Raymond, My interpretation of a "balanced" wine is that there is a nice mix of flavors without any one flavor overwhelming the others.

Dan-O

Well, I usually think of balance in white wines as being a function of fruit and acidity (with residual sugar to acid as an additonal factor in non-dry wines). In red wines I think of balance as a function of fruit, tannin, and acidity.

Alcohol, to me, only generally figures in the equation when too much noticable alcohol (a "hot" wine) throws off the balance.

Now some dislike dry Riesling (such as many Australians, Austrians, and maybe Alsace) due to what they precieve as too much acidity. Some of us are acid-freaks, others not. Chacun a son gout.

Does it mean that a wine that has high acidity and zero sugar which is supposedly sour can be considered as balanced because our brain interprets the smell of ripe fruits as sweetness. After my humble experiment, I am not quite convinced. I had two glasses of pure lime juice. One unsweetened and the other with some sugar. Obviously, the latter tasted much better because the sugar was in harmony with the acidity. Though the formal has smell of ripe lime, the inadequacy of sweetness threw it off balance. My conclusion: a high acidity bone-dry wine is never balanced.

"Raymond" wrote in news:di39hs$gd7$ snipped-for-privacy@reader01.singnet.com.sg:

the problem is that there is a higher acid content to lime juice than grape and it takes a lot of sugar to overcome the sourness of a Lime in grapes the two are more in harmony

"My conclusion: a high acidity bone-dry wine is never balanced. "

You base this on tasting lime juice? Hmmm. No problem, more Nigl Privat, Trimbach CFE, Baumard & Closel Savennieres, and Louis Michel Chablis for me!