I don’t know about you, but I enjoy my red wine – rose and occasional white. What the heck, I just like wine full stop. But one question I get asked is, are the fruit tastes in wine real?
On more than one occasion, my girl (normally when we are having a meal) says that the fruit tastes the winemakers say we will taste are a figment of their imagination. I can often smell different fruit aromas and taste different flavours.
But for me, wine isn’t just about the wine; it is also about the experience, the aroma, and the taste. This means that the glass that I choose for each occasion matters.
So, I turned to the internet to research this subject and came up with some interesting facts.
Wine tasting, How is the Experience?
Many aspects of wine production can influence its different flavours, aromas, and tastes.
On one level, when you are picking up a hint of plum or berry, they may just be identifying one or more of the compounds called esters.
The winemaker's decisions can all affect the way these flavours and aromas come to you on your nose and pallet.
In wine, esters are attributed to giving out a fruity aroma to wines.
Different grape varieties have a unique chemical makeup, with varying amounts of organic esters that, through processing, give out varying aromas.
When the wine matures in oak barrels, which have their own combination of esters, we get the whole gambit of esters that give the wine its specific aroma portfolio.
In young wines, the main dominant aromas are notes of berries, e.g. red berries, cherry, and blackberries in red wine.
In white wine, it would be apples, pineapples, citrus and other types of tropical fruits. As the wine ages, you get a secondary tier of aromas that develops,
These include smoke, tobacco, earth, and truffle. These qualities are normally sought in high-quality wines that can age to develop this bouquet.
Not all esters give the wine a good aroma—some give a bad aroma, known as the wet dog.
This is a great indicator that it has exposed the wine to bacteria responsible for cork taint. Also known as corked wine.
It gets more complicated
It also gets more complicated because each one of us looks at the whole taste in different ways, so when trying to describe what it is, we taste or smell comes from our experience of how we compare different but similar products,
i.e. Are you a Coca-Cola or a Pepsi person? I’m sure that if you have tried them both, you will have an opinion on what flavour is better and why. I hope this will give you a better idea of why you can sometimes get hints of different smells and tastes.
Sometimes, talking about wine sounds snobby, but I was talking to a friend who told me they had bought some coffee a while back, described as having notes of toffee and chocolate. They picked that one over the one that was crisp with orange notes.
So, I guess it is all down to each individual. As long as you are enjoying your wine, whether you can taste or smell something different, then all is good in the world.
Richard, the wine gift guy.
Enjoy your wine and drink responsibly.
