Acid :
Piercing, Thin, lean, stringy, Crisp, Fresh, Soft, Flabby
Tannin :
Astringent, Chewy, Aggressive, Hard, Firm
Alcohol :
Light, Rich, Powerful
Favours :
Dry, Dull, Dusty, Focused, Blod, Complex, Tart, Ripe, Rounded, Oaky, Toasty
Composition :
Supple, Fat, Full, Big, Structured, Steely
- Aggressive - a wine with acid that makes your gums sting or that dries up the back of your throat due to excess of tannin.
- Astringent - a wine in which the mouth-drying effect of tannin is very marked.
- Big - a full-bodies wine with lots of everything: fruit, flavour, acid, tannin and alcohol.
- Blod - a wine with distinct, easily understood flavours.
- Chewy - wine with a lot of tannin and strong flavour, but which is not aggressive.
- Complex - a wine that has layer upon layer of flavours.
- Crisp - a refreshing white with good acidity.
- Dry - not at all sweet
- Dull - a wine with no well-defined pleasing flavours. Often a sign of too much expousure to oxygen.
- Dusty - a dry, slightly earthy taste sometimes found in reds. Can be very attractive if combined with good fruit.
- Fat - full-bodied, unctuous
- Firm - well-balanced, well-defined wine; the opposite of flabby.
- Flabby - lacking in acidity, feeble
- Focused - a wine in which all the flavours are well defined.
- Fresh - young wine, with lively fruit flavours and good acidity.
- Full - a wine with a weighty feel in the mouth.
- Green - can mean unrip. But green leaf flavours are common in cool-climate reds, and greenness in association with flavours such as gooseberries or apples, imples the fresh, tangy flavours found in some white wines.
- Hard - a red with a lot of tannin or a white with too much acid, but uncompromising rather than aggressive. One step beyond firm.
- Light - low alcohol or little body
- Oaky - slightly sweet vanilla flavour, the toastiness and the butteriness a wine acquires from new oak barrels.
- Piercing - usually refers to high acidity. But fruit flavours can also be piercing if they are particularly vibrant.
- Powerful - a wine with plenty of everything, particularly alcohol.
- Rich - full, well-flavoured, with plenty of alcohol.
- Ripe - wine made from well-ripened grapes has good fruit flavour.
- Rounded - any wine in which the flavour seems satisfyingly completed, with no unpleasant sharpness.
- Soft - a wine without harsh tannins or too much acidity, making it an easy-going drink.
- Steely - good acidity and a wine that is firm and lean but not thin.
- Structured - Plenty of structure refers to a wine with a well-developed backbone of acid and tennin, but enough fruit to stand up to it.
- Supple - both vigorous and smooth. A description of texture rather than flavour.
- Tart - a very sharp, acid taste like an unripe apple.
- Thin, lean, stringy - terms for high-acid wine lacking in flavour.
- Toasty - a flavour like buttered toast that results from maturing a wine in oak barrels.
