Wine Set 1: Define wine description words

Question 1

Acidity

Answer 1

Wines with high acidity are tart and zesty. Red wines generally have a lighter color and more tart characteristics (versus “round”). White wines are often described with characteristics similar to lemon or lime juice.

Question 2

Angular

Answer 2

An angular wine is like putting a triangle in your mouth – it hits you in specific places with high impact and not elsewhere. It’s like getting punched in the arm in the same place over and over again. An angular wine also has high acidity.

Question 3

Austere

Answer 3

This is a very unfriendly wine. It hits your mouth and then turns it inside out. It usually means the wine has very high acidity and very little fruit flavors. An austere wine is not fruit-forward nor opulent.

Question 4

Barnyard

Answer 4

Dirty, earth flavors in a wine.

Question 5

Big

Answer 5

Big describes a wine with massive flavor in your mouth that takes up all sections of your mouth and tongue. A big wine is not necessarily a fruit-forward wine, it can also mean that it has big tannins.

Question 6

Bright

Answer 6

Bright wines are higher in acidity and make your mouth water.

Question 7

Buttery

Answer 7

A wine with buttery characteristics has been aged in oak and generally is rich and flat (less Acidity). A buttery wine often has a cream-like texture that hits the middle of your tongue almost like oil (or butter) and has a smooth finish.

Question 8

Cassis

Answer 8

The least fruit-like of all dark fruits…refers to seedy and gritty character of actual black currants.

Question 9

Charcoal

Answer 9

A wine that is described as tasting like charcoal tastes gritty, it’s usually dry (with higher tannins) and has this rustic flavor. Charcoal is often associated with a similar characteristic: pencil lead (but less refined).

Question 10

Chewy Tannins

Answer 10

When you take a sip of wine with chewy tannins, it dries out the interior of your mouth so that you “chew” or clean the tannins out of the insides of your mouth.

Question 11

Fat

Answer 11

Wide, Big, Massive, Opulent: These are all similar synonyms of fat. Turns out fat is the least desirable of all of them because it’s flabby. A fat wine comes in and takes up all the room in your mouth and hangs in awkward places.

Question 12

Flabby

Answer 12

Flabby means the wine has no acidity. It’s a negative connotation so don’t say it to a wine maker! They will spear you with their forklift.

Question 13

Jammy

Answer 13

Indicates a wine with a cooked berry sweetness that is syrupy and often is used to describe American wines like zinfandel, grenache, cabernet franc and Australian shiraz

Question 14

Lees

Answer 14

Lees are an actual winemaking term describing the dead bits of yeast particles that generally sink to the bottom of a wine. Lees are stirred up once a day to make a wine have a thicker, more oily, creamy texture.

Question 15

Opulent

Answer 15

This word is a baseline word to a style of wine that is rich, smooth and bold. If you are a rich, smooth, bold wine guy, “Opulent” is your word.

Question 16

Structured

Answer 16

Wines with high tannin and high acid.

Question 17

Velvety

Answer 17

Lush, smooth and silky are all synonyms of a velvety wine.