In the last post, I ended by giving my definition of a good wine: one that smells good with no disagreeable odors, one that is smooth in the mouth, and one that leaves a pleasing and lingering aftertaste. Then I asked “Why do you like my Riesling and not my Cabernet Franc, both of which would be good wines by that definition?”
Basically, just three wine ingredients determine whether a person will like a table wine: sugar, acid and tannins. While excessive or deficient alcohol can enter the equation, the vast majority of wines these days have an acceptable level of alcohol, so let’s leave alcohol out of the discussion for today.
Sugar in a table wine is the natural grape sugar that was not converted into alcohol by the action of the yeasts. Most people detect some sweetness at a level of between one-half and one per cent, but the effect of sugar is greatly influenced by the acid and tannin level of the wine.
All wine is acidic to varying degrees, with most white wines more acidic than most red wines, and again the perception of acidity is greatly influenced by the sugar level.
Tannins in wine come primarily from the grape skins and seeds that are present when a red wine is fermented, and are essential to its structure and aging potential. A small amount can come from oak, so while tannins are predominantly associated with red wines, white wines that are fermented and/or aged in barrels can have some tannin. The taste of tannins is associated with an astringent sensation on the tongue and surfaces of the mouth.
Most people seem to fall into four groups according to these three ingredients: (1) People who only like wines with residual sugar (sugar lovers), (2) People for whom any hint of sugar is off-putting (acid lovers), (3) People who only like red wines (tannin lovers) and (4) people who like all kinds of wine (wine lovers). But over time, people tend to move among the groups, mostly going from a lower numbered group to a higher numbered one.
Physiological factors play a part in determining which group you are in, most importantly the actual number of taste buds you have on your tongue. These can vary greatly among individuals and women tend to have more than men. If you are on the high end of the taste bud scale, you will be more sensitive to the astringency of tannins, and if you are on the low end you will not detect the full strength of the tannins.
Whether you like a wine is also influenced, both positively and negatively, by what you had in your mouth prior to the ingestion of the wine. For example a crisp dry white wine is going to taste downright sour if you taste it after eating or drinking something sweet. On the other hand, a tannic red wine is going to taste less tannic after a bite of roast beef. The point is that if you have wine with food, and experiment with the combinations, you may find that you actually like wines that you thought were not your cup of tea, so to speak.
In the next post I will talk about the basics of wine and food matching.