Top 5 terms you need to know as a wine enthusiast
If you don’t know what these words mean, are you really the wine expert your friends think you are?
Wine lingo can feel like an entirely different language sometimes. If you have ever been to a tasting event, you will see all these serious looking people saying things like ‘dry’, ‘full’, ‘body’. If you have ever wondered what those terms actually mean, then you are in for a real treat, because today we are going to run down on the five most popular terms used in the wine world.
- Dry: The French word for this is brut (you are welcome). Technically, a dry wine contains no more than 0.2 % of unfermented sugar. What that means is that this type of wine is the exact opposite of sweet because it has no residual sugar. During the fermentation process, all the existing sugar in the grape is converted fully into alcohol, leaving almost no sweetness in the wine. Probably not the best choice if you have a sweet tooth.
- Body: The body of a wine is the way it feels on the tongue. Different wines will have varying degrees of thickness depending on alcohol and sugar content. The body of a wine is usually split into three categories; light, medium and full body.
Light-bodied wines usually contain the least amount of alcohol and are delicate on the tongue. Most riesling wines are light-bodied. Medium-bodied wines like Cabernet Franc have a bit more fullness to them. Full-bodied wines like Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon have the highest level of alcohol and are great complements for rich-flavoured foods.
Fermentation: If you move in wine circles, then you definitely hear this term thrown around very often. Fermentation is a very key part of the winemaking process and it often determines what kind of wine you end up with. In the fermentation process, a specific amount of yeast is added to the crushed grape juice . Through a chemical reaction, the yeast begins to convert the grape sugars into ethanol and carbon dioxide, thereby creating alcohol.
- Mouth/feel:
This does not refer to a part of the body. The mouthfeel of a wine is quite simply, the feelings or sensations it creates in the mouth when it is sipped. This can range from sharp to crisp or smooth and creamy. The mouthfeel mostly depends on the alcohol content and the type of grapes used.
Nose: Also, not a body part. The nose of a wine is the way it smells in the glass. Is it floral, fresh, fruity, plum or zesty? The other ingredients that go into the wine-after the grapes- can contribute to creating a distinct nose for the wine. At Bluenun, we create the best and most luxurious wines that will appeal to any type of vinophile. (That is a bonus term that means wine lover.)
Explore our wide variety of white, red and rose wines to create any kind of moment that you want.