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| If you're a wine lover, improving your vocabulary can make you happier |
When it comes to wine tasting, whether you’re tooling around
Paso Robles Wine Country on a wine tasting tour with The Wine Wrangler or
curled up on your sofa with your latest wine shipment from The Paso Robles Wine Club, having a
basic wine vocabulary will help you enjoy talking about the wine more
confidently and fine tune your palate. There are just about as many adjectives
to describe wines as there are wines, so it will take time to build your
vocabulary.
Here are 3 main flavor
profiles and the nuanced flavors you’ll find in each:
Flowers:
Anytime we talk about the floral characteristics, we’re talking about the
flavors that remind us of certain types of flowers. These can range from the
delicate to the bold and include the following:
White Flowers: Typically found in white wines, white flowers
include apple blossoms, gardenia and lily.
Rose: The unmistakable aroma of fresh cut roses, delicate
and pretty, can be found in both red and white wines.
Violets: Heady and deeply
perfumed, think candied violets; found in red wines.
Fruit: All
wines have some fruit flavor to them, but depending on the varietal and style
of wine, they can be fruit forward or slightly nuanced. Here are three of the
most common:
Jammy: Think ripe fruits; this
flavor profile is common in high alcohol red wines.
Tropical Fruit: You might never think you’d come across
tropical fruit flavors in wine, but this is a common profile in white wines.
These tropical flavors include banana, pineapple, coconut and lychee.
Citrus: Another common flavor profile in white wines, citrus
encompasses lemon, lime, grapefruit, orange and citrus zest.
Spice: Spice,
of course, denotes any of the warm spices found in wines. These include the
wintry warm spices typical of holiday fare, such as cinnamon, nutmeg and
clove, but can also include woodsy flavors.
Anise: You’ll recognize this flavor almost immediately as it
tastes like licorice or those delicious Italian cookies.
Clove: Clove is woodsy in flavor and sweet; generally, clove
is present in aged-oak.
Musky: This bold flavor profile isn’t for the faint of
heart. Animalistic, sweaty and spicy, this can be an intense flavor; typical of
red wines, particularly those in the Old World style.
Becoming better at wine tasting requires more than just
drinking more wine (although, there’s no harm in that), but a commitment to
building a bigger wine vocabulary and a clearer understanding of the different
flavor profiles and varietals. To improve your depth, get out and taste more wine, or sign
up for our wine club membership today
and enjoy the convenience of tasting a wide variety of boutique and award-winning
wines from Paso Robles Wine Country
in your own home.
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