You're at some friends' house for dinner. The table is set, complete with cloth napkins and multiple forks. In addition to a water glass, each place setting has two wine glasses and you wonder why. One is taller and narrower than the other.
She walks around the table pouring water into each wine glass and he is about to pour the wine. But first he shows you the label. You smile and nod, not quite sure how he expects you to respond. He opens the bottle and gives the cork a sniff. He pours a small amount in one glass, swirls it around, gives it a sniff and then takes a sip. He nods and then begins to pour each glass.
Everyone sits down at the table and your hosts raise a glass of wine to toast before beginning the meal. You sip the wine. Your host who poured the wine says something along the lines of, I think you'll enjoy this wine; it has a nice mouthfeel and notes of dried cherry—what do you think?
"It's tasty," you say.
Has this ever happened to you? You're socializing with friends, or maybe even some people you want to impress, and you're asked to comment on the wine but you don't know what to say. It all tastes like wine to you, right? Some wine is maybe stronger than others, but that whole notes of dried cherry nuance is lost on you.
What does nice mouthfeel and notes of dried cherry even mean?
Wine culture definitely has its own lingo. People who are wine enthusiasts may speak English, but they way they use the language sometimes can seem like it might as well be its own dialect. But it doesn't have to be—here's what certified sommelier Barbara Paul has to say about it...
Barbara Paul's take on the language of wine & how to speak the lingo
Barbara Paul on the Language of Wine
Now, I'm not about to bore you with a glossary list of terms. So let's take a look at how someone might describe a wine and then break it down into regular-speak.
Maybe you've come across something like this:
This wine garners the deep claret of pomegranate and plum. The resinous offerings of the nose begin with vanillin and tobacco with hints of dark chocolate that transition from a fruit forward first sip into a smooth, chewy stone fruit line, which eventually lead to the smoky finish characteristic of its oak barrel aging.
Ugh. What does resinous offerings and smokey finish characteristic even mean? Let's break it down by sense.
"This wine garners the deep claret of pomegranate and plum."
It's not uncommon to use other fruits to describe wine—it is made from fruit, after all. So when you see words like pomegranate and plum, they are meant to invoke the characteristics of those fruits, in this case the color.
Real-speak Translation: It has a deep reddish-purple color, almost like velvet.
"The resinous offerings of this wine's nose begin with vanillin and tobacco with hints of dark chocolate..."
As we'll hear from Andrea in this chapter's wine pro video, the nose simply refers to how the wine smells.
Real-speak Translation: It smells a little woody, like a smokey mixture of vanilla and chocolate.
"...that transition from fruit forward first sip into a smooth, chewy stone fruit line..."
Texture words like smooth and chewy are often used to describe how the wine feels in the mouth, and are meant to help tasters associate previous sensations of what certain flavors feel like.
Real-speak Translation: It has a big, full flavor.
"...stone fruit line, which eventually lead to the smoky finish characteristic of its oak barrel aging."
Another fruit reference. Stone fruit refers to just that: the fruits with stones, so cherry, plum, apricot. Fruit-forward means that the first thing you taste is fruity, and finish simply means aftertaste.
Real-speak Translation: It's fruity at first and then it has a slight toasty lingering flavor.
Just remember, describe what you see, smell, taste and feel, and you'll be fine.
Andrea Jackson on how to talk about wine
How to Talk About Wine