Step Three:<br>Taste The Wine
When the wine is in your mouth, more than one flavor may become apparent. After the wine leaves your mouth, additional tastes may surface (no kidding!). Here's a simple chart which may give you an idea of the directions a wine can take as it tiptoes through your tastebuds.
- Acrid describes a wine with overly pronounced acidity. This is often apparent in cheap red wines.
- Body is a term that covers a lot of ground. It generally describes how "full" a wine is, or how much flavor is apparent.
- Buttery is associated with some white wines, notably California Chardonnays. It refers to both flavor and texture or "mouthfeel."
- Complex is used to describe a wine that has a number of discernable characteristics (generally good ones), rather than one or two. Good wines that have aged well will be complex wines.
- Dry is used to describe a wine that is not sweet.
- Earthy describes a wine that tastes of the soil in which it was grown. Red wines most often have this characteristic.
- Finish is a synonym for aftertaste, used to describe the characteristics of a wine that remain after the wine has left your mouth.
- Flat indicates a wine that does not have enough acidic qualities. A synonym for uninteresting.
- Hard is generally used to describe a young wine that has a lot of tannins.
- Jammy is used for a red wine that has the taste of dense ripe fruit. A wine can become overly jammy when not balanced by good tannin levels.
- Neutral is generally used to describe a wine without any outstanding characteristics, but with no particular bad ones, either.
- Nutty refers to a wine with an oxidized character -- one that has had exposure to air. This can be a good thing in smaller quantities, but too much oxidation will make a wine taste like sherry when it isn't.
- Oaky is used for a wine that has a noticable taste of the oak barrel in which it was stored. This term can be used in both a positive and negative context.
- Plummy is used to describe wines with an overly ripe quality. Grapes that have been left on the vine too long can produce a plummy taste.
- Rough usually describes a poorly made wine, one that has a raw quality to it--although it can also refer to a quality wine that happens to be immature.
- Round describes a wine that has a good balance of fruit and tannins, with good body as well.
- Simple is used to describe a wine that has few characteristics which follow the initial impression. Not necessarily a disparaging term, it's often used to describe inexpensive young wine.
- Strawberry is used mostly with blush and nouveau wines. It denotes a very fruity, tangy taste.
- Supple describes a wine with well-balanced tannins and fruit characteristics.
- Toasty is often used to describe a white wine with a nice hint of the wooden barrel in which the wine was stored. Sweeter wines are rarely described this way.
- Vinegary is used for a wine that has the excessive acidic qualities that indicate it has turned to vinegar. This generally occurs through cork failure, which exposes the wine to air; exposure to excessive heat while in storage, or excessive aging of the wine.
| Intro: Before You Begin | Step One: Know Your Wine Regions | Step Two: Smell The Wine | 
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