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[personal profile] rivka
I like drinking wine, but I'm certainly no expert. I don't, for example, know how to talk about wine using the kinds of terms you see in tasting notes (for example, "A medium ruby starting to show some brick at the edges. A clean but modest nose of dark stone fruits and violets. The tannins are smooth and melting away. Blackberries and plums; rose petals. Lovely but starting to fade." Huh?).

So I'm intrigued by these instructions for how to develop a sense of different aromas a wine can have. It explains how to make "standards" to illustrate specific scents - combining a neutral wine (like the kind that comes in a box) with bits of different flavorings. For example:
Asparagus (several drops of brine of canned asparagus)
Bell Pepper (tiny piece of bell pepper - don't leave in too long)
Vanilla (drop of vanilla extract)
Butter (drop of butter extract)
Clove (one clove, don't leave in too long)
He recommends that you get some broadly different wines to taste, and then use the "standards" as a reference to try and identify the different aromas present in the wines.

It seems like a lot of work to set up the standards, but I also think it could be fun. Might be a good idea for a party.

wine translation

Date: 2004-01-27 09:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] nex0s.livejournal.com
< oneo-geek >
a medium ruby -- this is the color of the wine.

show some brick at the edges -- at the edges of where the wine meets the glass. see, you hold the glass above a candle and look down into it. at the edges of the liquid there will be a slightly different color. sometimes it is more purple and other times more red or what have you. in this case, it is more brick colored.

a clean but modest nose of dark stone fruits and violets -- smells like peaches, and plums and violets and not overwhelming so.

tannins are smooth and melting away -- tannins are found in red wine, tea and coffee (somewhat). when you drink black tea that's been over steeped, you can often taste the tannins as this astringent flavor in it. here, the tannins are there, but not overwhelming and they fade quickly.

blackberries and pums, rose peatles: these are other flavors found in the wine, not on the "nose" (in other words the aroma) but in the main taste of the wine.

lovely but starting to fade -- it's really a nice wine, but drink it soon as in another year or two it won't be as good.

< / oneo-geek >

it took me a while to be able to understand how these things are structured. but once you get the hang of it, going into a wine shop becomes a lot more fun! :)

n.
hopefully helpfully :)

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