Tag Archives: grapes

O Tannin Bomb

At dinner with friends the other night, the subject of tannic wine came up. “Tantric wine?” I asked, “That sounds like fun!” I thought it meant we’d just take a really, really, really long time to enjoy a bottle of red. I’ve been to tastings, seminars and parties where one will take a sip and proclaim that the wine is very tannic. But what does that even mean?

The term tannin comes from the long time practice of using plant extracts to ‘cure’ leather. In winemaking, tannins are compounds that bind to proteins ~ proteins that exist both in other chemical components of  wine as well as the salivary proteins within the mouth. This is a very basic description of a very complex process but you get the idea. This complexity is also what makes studying tannin quite difficult as these bonds break and reform several times before the nectar ever comes close to hitting your belly.

You can liken wine tannin to steeping tea ~ look at 4 cups of tea in various stages of brew. The first one is after a few moments, the next after 3 minutes, next after 5 and after 8-10. You’ll notice significant differences in how the tea looks (light to tar-like) and tastes (weak to very strong). A wine high in tannin will look darker and taste stronger.

There are two classes of tannins: one coming from the oak barrels the wine is aged in and grape-derived.

Green and Mean ~

In nature, tannins serve as a kind of defense for the plant. It gives plants an unpleasant taste, discouraging animals from consuming them, allowing them to grow to maturity. Grapes begin tiny and  green in order to match the new stems and are extremely bitter ~ it also keeps the birds from dining too soon. These berries are where the developing seeds are housed, undisturbed until they go to college, hit a few keg parties and then graduate to become adult grapes. When birds consume the mature grapes, they eventually deposit the digested seeds and re-propagation of grapes begins anew. Unless of course the deposits end up on your car. Since the seeds also contribute a great deal of tannin to red wine, they can have a very nasty effect if they are unripe.

 Bitter is the New…Bitter ~

Here we can pull out our trusty mouthfeel wheel. Tannins contribute to both astringency and bitterness; with bitterness being sensed by taste bud receptors located on the very back of the tongue and soft palate.

Rather than being able to smell tannins, it’s more of how it feels on your tongue. Astringency is the feeling because the tannins bind with proteins in saliva, thereby increasing the friction between the mouth surfaces leading to a sensation of dryness or roughness. On the wheel, you might see words like furry, cottony or wooly ~ that’s what astringent ‘feels’ like.

Style meets Substance ~

Light ~ lighter in color and on the palate , thin consistency. Good examples: Gamay, Beaujolais Nouveau

Medium ~ a little more tannin, is richer on the palate and is  not as beefy.  Good examples: Merlot, Pinot Noir, Shiraz

Full ~   has the highest tannin content, more pucker on the palate,  creamy consistency with usually a higher alcohol content. Good example: Cabernet Sauvignon

With high tannic wines, what you see will generally be what you get. You’ll find wines rich in color; deep ruby or claret, purple and maroon.

For many who enjoy wine, tannin really isn’t an issue unless it adversely affects the taste. Choosing wines that have high or low tannin depends entirely on your preference. Just make sure you take a really, really long time to enjoy them.

Cheers!

Wine Tasting 101

Much of what I’ve learned about wine tasting (real wine tasting; not quickly sucking back a wine skin before a high school dance) I’ve garnered from trips over the years to wineries. The American Wine School here in Cleveland has some great classes to demonstrate how to quaff like a pro.  And once you have the basics, you can impress your friends at dinner with your learned snuffing and swishing. I don’t recommend spitting at dinner ~ it generally horrifies the others.

You’ll want to use a glass that gives you the ability to: swirl it without spilling, and get your nose into fully so you can inhale the aroma. In the coming weeks, I’ll write more about glassware and how it can enhance the wine drinking experience.

Unless you’re going to decant your wine for a few hours, or pour it through a wine aerator, you can: swirl it (on a table or countertop) to move a little oxygen through. This works to breathe new life, if you will, into a wine that’s been stopped up in a bottle for a while and improve the flavor you experience.

Love at First Sight

Once you’ve got your wine in the glass, and you’ve swirled it a few times, you’ll want to look for a few things:

  • Clarity: how clear is the wine?  Is there any sediment floating around or settling to the bottom
    • can be described as: muddy, cloudy, bright.
  • Intensity: is the color pale or dark?
  • Color: this indicates the tone or tint of the wine. you could use words like: ruby, purple, crimson, green, yellow, straw, amber

A good way to really see how it looks is to hold your glass at a slight angle over a white surface. You can use a white table cloth or a light countertop.The white surface helps to illuminate the wine and you can see more detail.

After swirling, tilt your glass and take a look. You’ll be surprised at what you can see.

White surface...for better clarity

White surface... for better clarity

On the Nose

Smelling, or nosing, determines several things about a wine:

  • condition (good or bad)
  • intensity (weak or robust and pronounced)
  • character (how you’d actually describe the fruit itself)
  • How to ‘Nose’ a Wine: I know, it sounds all kinds of wrong but it isn’t. Take one short sniff (to determine condition) and ask yourself: is it good or bad? Short sniffs are actually important because air that moves quickly into the nasal passages intensifies the sense of smell.
Hello Wine!

Hello Wine!

After this, you can take several more deep, gentle sniffs to determine the aroma’s intensity and character. When you swirl and sniff, see how many ways you can describe the aromas. And don’t worry if you’re just starting out, you will be able to tell if a wine just doesn’t smell good to you. Really.

Over the Teeth and Past the Gums: Taste the Wine

Many experts have said that the best way to taste wine is to take a bit in your mouth, swish it back and forth while opening your mouth just slightly as you do it. This is to bring air into the wine to further oxygenate and bring out the flavors. That may be true, but I just end up with it dribbling down my chin. You can try it but  make sure you have a napkin nearby, just in case.

According to the American Wine School, tasting involves seven components:

  • Sweetness ~ how dry or sweet is it? Whether a wine is ‘dry’ means that there is very little left over sugar
  • Acidity ~ this is the sour yin to the sweet yang; described as fresh, crisp, tart, flat.
  • Tannins ~ provide the robust texture and structure (like espresso); hard, soft, bitter, chewy, round.
  • Alcohol ~ is what carries the aroma and heat (and all this time I thought it was a hot flash); low, medium, high.
  • Body ~ how much weight the wine has on your tongue. It’s like a milky consistency of varying degrees, depending on the type of wine; light, medium, full
  • Fruit ~ the grapey, fruity (and non-fruit) flavors (like smoke, cherry, citrus, butter, stone and vinyl).
    • ** The wine aroma wheel is an excellent tool to help you to describe the fruit tastes you’ll experience. I’ll be looking at that in one of my next posts.
  • Finish ~ is the aftertaste and how long it stays in your mouth; usually described as short, medium, long.

So there you have it; some basics on tasting to get you started.

Cheers!

To read more about  wine tasting:  www.jancisrobinson.com