more than ACCESORIEs
Our Characteristics guide allows you to understand the levels of various elements of the wine, further assisting you in understanding how the experience will be before you buy a wine.
Acidity
Acidity in wine is the element that causes you to salivate and can sometimes make a wine taste tart. The higher the acidity, the greater you salivate (think about the water that collects at the sides of your mouth when you taste a lemon).
Fruit
Fruit describes the level of fruit-forward flavor in a wine. Fruit-forwardness and sweetness are often confused, so it is important to understand the difference. Frequently, fruit-forwardness is confused with sweetness because we associate many fruits such as strawberries or melon with sweetness. However, the flavor of fruit on the mouth does not necessarily equate to sweetness. The sweetness in a wine, contrarily, is the level of residual sugar left after the fermentation and aging process.
Tannin
Tannins are derived from the skins, stems & seeds of the grapes and cause your mouth to “pucker.” High-tannin wines are often referred to as giving you a feeling of a “cat’s mouth.” They also may leave your teeth feeling gritty, the way your teeth feel after you’ve taken a bite of an apple with the skin on.
Sweetness
Sweetness is the level of residual sugar in the wine after fermentation. Sugar often helps balance out higher acidity levels (and vice versa), much like sugar added to lemon juice and water makes lemonade. Once again, it is important to note that a wine can have a relatively low sugar content but high fruit-forwardness and be perceived to be sweet due to our association with fruits generally being sweet.
Body
Body describes the texture or weight of a wine in the mouth. Fuller-bodied wines tend to linger in your mouth for longer, which can be influenced by a number of factors, including sugar and alcohol levels. You may have heard someone say before, “Wow, this wine has great legs!” The legs of the wine are often influenced by its body (such as sugar and alcohol contents) and do not necessarily detect whether or not the wine is “good” or “bad.”