I just wanted to share some quick wine vocab so everyone can sound cool when they are describing wines to their friends at dinner parties. So here's a quick little lesson.
Words used when tasting wine to describe it:
Tannin: It's that feeling you get after drinking a red wine and your mouth feels like its drying out or bitter. It comes from contact with the skins, seeds, and stems of the grapes. High tannin wines tend to be Cab's, Malbec's, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, while low tannin wines tend to be Pinot Noir, Gamay, Cab Franc and the like.
Acidity: The best way to tell a wine's acidity level is after you drink it, hold your mouth down slightly open and see how much your mouth is watering, the more your mouth waters, the higher acidity level in the wine. It's that tingly, tart sensation. Sauvignon Blancs, and wines from cooler climates tend to have higher acidity than warm climate wines.
Body: Light, Medium, or Full bodied wines. I like to relate this to skim, 2% fat, and full fat milk. The thicker the wine feels in your mouth, the fuller bodied that wine is.
Oak-Aging: This is when wine is put into oak barrels to age over time. This process imparts flavors into the wine like vanilla, cinnamon, coconut, and baking spices. The type of barrel used also matters, French vs American oak, etc. The smaller and newer that the barrel is, the more flavors it will impart in the wine, the bigger and older the barrel is, the less flavor is imparted.
Dry: Most wines are dry, Sweetness is determined by the amount of residual sugar left in the wine after fermentation, and most wines have less than 1% meaning they are considered "dry". When someone asks for a "sweet wine" the only truly sweet wines are often dessert wines like port and sauternes, but they probably mean they want an "off-dry" wine, something fruity with a little bit of that residual sugar left in the wine, I usually recommend a Moscato or Riesling for those liking that hint of sweetness.
Finish: This is how long you can still taste the wine after you have swallowed it. The longer it lingers on your tongue, the longer "finish" that wine has. If it dissipates almost immediately, that's a short finish.
Terroir: A French term used for describing the natural environment of the vineyard where the grapes are grown. It includes the specific soil, climate, terrain, etc of a region that all contribute to the taste of the wine.
Sediment: Have you ever seen little sludgy looking gunk or crystals at the bottom of your wine glass and wondered uhhh what's that... Those little particles are known as "wine diamonds"in white wine or "dregs or lees" in red wine and they are of no harm whatsoever, they are simply natural byproducts of the wine, and actually can mean the wine has had less tampering with and may be of higher quality and more able to age.
In white wine, they are tartrate crystals that occur when tartaric acid bonds with potassium chloride, when the temperature drops below 40 degrees. A lot of wineries will put their wines through cold stabilization, which removes these crystals before the wine is released, but some more age worthy whites might still have them in there, and when the wine is refrigerated for a certain amount of time these crystals can form.
In red wine, the dregs are spent yeast, and are usually a sign of a well aged red wine. Yeast cells are used in the fermentation process, and although most is filtered out, some is left in the wine, and if aged for months or years, eventually these used up yeast cells can float to the bottom of the bottle. If you want to filter out this sediment, simply get a decanter with a filter and filter it out before you pour!
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