Although the four main flavors - sweet, salty, sour, and bitter are all your tongue is really capable of tasting, the long lasting impression that wine leaves in your mouth is far more complex. When you drink or taste wine, your taste buds and your sense of smell are involved, adding to the way you interpret wine overall. The flavors, aromas, and sensations that wine is comprised of provide the interaction that you taste when you sample wine.
Sweetness is something that wines are well known for.
With most types of wine, grapes are responsible for the sweet taste. Grapes contain a lot of sugar, which breaks the yeast down into alcohol. The grapes and yeast that were used to produce the wine will leave behind various sugars, which your tongue will be able to quickly detect. Once your tongue detects these various sugars, the stimulation of sweetness from the wine will be ever so present in your mouth.
Alcohol is also present in wine, although your tongue doesn’t really know how to decipher the taste of alcohol. Even though the tongue doesn’t really taste alcohol, the alcohol is present in the mouth. The alcohol found in wine will dilate blood vessels and therefore intensify all of the other flavors found in the wine. After you have samples a few types of wine, the alcohol level can easily have an effect on your taste buds, making it hard to distinguish other drinks that you may have.
Another flavor is acidity, which will effect the sugars. With the proper balance of acidity, the overall flavor of wine can be very overwhelming.
Once you taste wine that contains it, the flavor of the acidity will be well known to your tongue. Although acidity is great with wine, too much of it will leave a very sharp taste. With the right levels, acidity will bring the flavors of the grape and fruits alive in your mouth - providing you with the perfect taste.
Yet another effect of flavor are tannins, which are the proteins found in the skins of grapes and other fruits. If a wine has the right amount of tannins, it will give your tongue a great feel, and bring in the sensations of the other flavors.
Once a wine starts to age, the tannins will begin to breakdown in the bottle, giving you a softer feel to the taste. Tannins are essential for the taste of wine - providing the wine has been properly aged.
The last flavor associated with wine is oak.
Although oak isn’t put into the wine during the manufacturing process, it is actually transferred during the aging process, as most wines will spend quite a bit of time in oak barrels. Depending on how long the wine is left in the oak barrel or cask, the ability to extract the flavor will vary.
Most often times, wine will be aged just enough to where the oak taste is visibly there - and adds the perfect sentiment to the taste.
Although there are other flavors involved with the taste of wine, they aren’t as present as those listed above. The above flavors are the most present in wine, and also the flavors that you need to get more familiar with. Before you try to taste wine or distinguish flavors, you
should always learn as much you can about the components responsible for the flavors. This way - you will know more about what you are tasting and you’ll truly be able to appreciate wine.
There are 3 rules for choosing the correct dinner wine, these time honoured rules have been handed down through many generations of wine lovers and if adhered to, your dining experience will be second to none.
Rule 1: Drink what ever wine is you like the best. Now this sounds quite obvious, doesn't it? You would be surprised the amount of times wine drinkers get caught up in thinking that they must drink a certain wine with a meal, this so not the case! We each have our own wine choices and know exactly what we do and do not like to drink when it comes to wine.
Of course, if you do your research you will find various opinions and most of them will say the same thing, which certain wine goes with certain foods, but at the end of the day the choice of what wine to drink is really up to you, no matter what any review or guide says.
Rule 2: White wine with fish and red wine with meat? Not always! For those who have some knowledge of wines will know that white wine goes with white meat and fish and red wine goes with red meat. But being stringent with the rules takes out all the joy of choosing a good wine you truly enjoy.
The key is to trust your own sense of taste and what you think is good. Wine ought to do one of two things when you have a meal; complement or contrast. Not all fish dishes are cooked in the same manor, with this being the case then why should you only adhere to the white wines?
A good thing to do is consider the dish you are thinking about ordering or cooking, the way it is cooked, the various spices and seasonings added, then when you have considered the following choose a wine that will complement those elements or contrasts and you should end up with far more intense flavours and tastes.
Rule 3: Always read a wine label. Wines from different parts of the worlds are all different, again this sounds obvious, even the popular wines from merlots to Shiraz's and Cabernet's to zinfandels are all different in the way they are produced. A European merlot will be different from the merlot wines found in the States and Australia. A prudent move would be to really think about what you are going to order or what you have decided to cook and how it will be cooked.
In cooking there are many herbs and other things added to the dish, so the decision over what wine to have should follow this train of thought to make sure the wine will blend in well with these various flavours, if this is followed correctly then the meal should be such a memorable experience.
