Continued from Part I below…
Next, let’s talk about the nose, or bouquet of a wine. From the moment you stick your nose into a glass, you are receiving massive amounts of information about the wine. Don’t be afraid to break your analysis into steps, in which you take a deep whiff at each one. The first thing you should notice about the bouquet is where you start smelling it: if you can smell the wine when it’s being poured from across the table, it’s safe to say that the wine has a very pronounced or strong nose. If you can’t smell the wine until your nose is hovering just above it in the glass, then it has a light bouquet. In the case of the Dynamite Cab, it has a moderately pronounced nose that reaches you a bit above the glass.
The next step in the bouquet is identifying what it reminds you of. There is a very large variety of smells wine can produce. There are a number of ways to categorize the aromas (and flavors) you can get and I happen to be quite fond of breaking it into five major groups, each with a number of subgroups: Floral, Vegetal, Fruit, Spice and Other, where you’ll find subgroups like minerality and animal (think old leather). I’ll address the subcategories more as we come across them in future wines. As an example, let’s look at the Dynamite Cabernet: When I stuck my nose in the glass, I was immediately hit with the smell of berries, particularly blueberries and blackberries. These obviously fall under the Fruit category and more specifically are considered black fruit. I also noticed notes of very ripe sour cherry, which is closer to a red fruit than black, and some slight floral hints, particularly flowers like violets.
Now finally: take a sip, but don’t swallow it just yet. Let the wine linger on the tongue. Think about how the wine feels in your mouth. The tongue is divided into regions, each which picks up on a different characteristic. The tip of the tongue detects sweetness, the sides detect acidity or tartness and the back detects bitterness. There is an ongoing debate about another flavor profile called “umami,” which is a savory descriptor for things like bacon (my favorite vegetable!), but I will save that for another time. Another key component that will be discussed regarding the “mouth-feel” of a wine is “tannins” or “tannic acid.” The best way I can describe tannins is to encourage you to make a strong cup of black tea. Black tea is very high in tannic acid and when you take a sip, you should feel a fuzzy feeling where the teeth meet the gums. In wine, tannic acid is really only found in reds and comes from the seeds, stems and skins of the grape, but is one of the necessary factors for the age-ability of a wine. Younger wines will have harsher, more “gripping” tannins while older wines will have a softer, more delicate feel that can sometimes be compared to cocoa powder.
In the case of the Dynamite Cabernet Sauvignon, the mouth-feel is made up of a combination of the above-mentioned factors and a few others. I would describe the wine as dry, meaning no sugar left in the juice after the fermentation, with a slightly more than medium strength acidity and a bit more than medium tannins. I also did not feel much of any kind of burn or heat from the alcohol, which coincides with the 13.9% stated alcohol. After you assess all of these factors in a wine, think about the weight or “body” of the wine. In the case of the Dynamite, it had a medium body. Lastly think about how long you continue to taste the flavor. For obvious reasons, this is the called “the finish.” If you find the flavor drops out almost as soon as you swallow the wine, then you should describe the wine as having a very short finish; a long finish is when you find that you can still taste the wine for a minute or more. The Dynamite had a decent finish that dropped off nicely at a medium pace.
Lastly, think about the experience as a whole. All in all I enjoyed the Dynamite Cabernet Sauvignon. For a bottle of wine that I bought from my local supermarket for $9.99 plus tax, it was a good wine that offered a lot of flavor and good structure. The fruit was the strongest flavor, which is what I expected, but I was surprised to find the floral notes in the wine, something I had not detected in the 2005 vintage. Also, the Dynamite was well balanced, with neither the tannins nor the acid nor the alcohol overpowering the other elements. While it didn’t have many layers of flavor or complexity that can be found in many high-end or older wines, it was an easy and good wine for everyday drinking. The tannins and acidity lead me to believe that its flavor and structure will last a while longer, two to three years, but due it lack of layers and depth this Cabernet will not likely improve much over that time.
So there you have it: the basics to tasting wine and how I will go about describing the wines I taste. While it seems relatively complex at a glance, don’t get discouraged, remember the steps: look, smell, taste, and then think about what you’ve experienced. With a bit of practice and a few more bottles you will begin to find it is very easy. Lastly, remember one very important thing: everyone’s palate is different. Just because I taste something that you don’t, or if you taste something I missed, this doesn’t mean that either one of us is wrong, or that the wines I like are ones you will too. My goal is to help you find wines you will like and give you the tools to identify why you do.
Salute!
