Describing the type of wine one likes can prove for most quite a challenge. Wine certainly has its own vocabulary but with a little practice these perceived challenges can become a no-brainer.

Many centuries ago, wine descriptions in the Roman era fell in three simple categories: wine of great quality, wine for merrymaking and wine for taxes. One can only imagine what these wines tasted like. Wine descriptions changed over time and the amount of sweetness in the wine was the primary indicator of quality; some persons still use sweetness to decide what they want to drink. Anthropomorphic descriptions (describing wine according to human characteristics) was another method used historically. Some of this still happens since most writers refer to a red wine made from Cabernet Sauvignon as a masculine wine and thus use male descriptors to attempt to convey the taste. Champagne and Pinot Noir are thought to be feminine and therefore terms like “beautiful, elegant, fickle, moody” are often used in describing these wines.

In recent times, the industry has adopted fruit-related terms in describing wines from all over the world; you will also still hear anthropomorphic terms used to enhance or fine-tune the descriptions that wine critics and wine writers use to convey their interpretation of the wine.

Simplifying your wine description

If you are relatively new to wine, here are the basic components you need to understand in order to describe what type of wine you want to drink.

Red, White or Rosé: The first thing we need to decide on is if we want to drink Red, White or Rosé. All wine is produced in any of these three colour styles;, your choice might depend on time of day or what you are eating, or it might depend on what you are familiar with.

Light, Medium or Full: The next choice is related to the weight of the wine. This component describes how the wine feels in your mouth. Do you enjoy light, subtle, soft wines or do you enjoy big, mouth-filling, heavy wines? The dominating factor here is alcohol. Eleven per cent or less by weight or by volume feels light in your mouth; a German Riesling is a good example. Twelve per cent to 12.5 per cent wines will be described as medium-bodied. Full -bodied is 13 per cent or more, think Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

Sweet or Dry: This is the most important description for selecting white wines. It is also one that confuses most persons; even some seasoned wine drinkers are not able to describe levels of sweetness. Sweetness is related to the amount of residual sugar that exists in the finished wine. Remember that fermentation converts the sugar in grape juice into alcohol. The winemaker decides how sweet or dry he or she wants to make the wine. What can further confuse the issue is that alcohol also gives an impression of sweetness.

Fruit Sweet or Sugar sweet

I have found that many wine drinkers sometimes confuse fruit flavours in wine with the presence of sugar so they will describe a wine as being sweet, when there is no residual sugar in that wine at all. What I do is to actually let persons taste a truly sweet wine so they can experience the presence of sugar. I am trying to use different descriptions with new wine drinkers: describing a wine as fruit sweet vs being sugar sweet seems to have had some success.

Wines can be extra dry, dry, off dry, medium dry, Medium sweet or very sweet. Late harvest wines, Icewine, some German Rieslings, some Sherries are sweet. Most wines available in Jamaica are dry — meaning they are lacking any sweetness at all. While red wines can sometimes be sweet, over 90 per cent of the red wines are dry.

The issue of identifying sweetness in wine has spurred an organisation called The International Riesling Foundation (IRF) to complete a “Riesling Taste Profile” which is designed to make it easier for consumers to predict the taste they can expect from a particular bottle of Riesling in terms of sweetness. The four categories selected are: Dry, Medium Dry, Medium Sweet, and Sweet. The foundation also developed a simple graphic design showing the four levels from Dry to Sweet, and a simple indication of where a particular wine falls.

Other factors: Acidity, Tannins and Oak

While colour, body and sweetness are important, other factors help make the wine taste the way it does. Acidity is what gives fruit its refreshing, flavoursome sensation. Without it fruit would seem overly sweet and cloying. Tannins in a wine are derived from the pips, skins and stalks. They are vitally important if a wine is intended to age, as they are a natural preservative. The tannins give structure and backbone to the wine. They can be sensed by a furring of the mouth, or puckering of the gums, a sensation very similar to what happens on drinking tea. Many wines are matured in oak barrels, and some are even fermented in oak. Oak from different sources will impart different characteristics to the wine, but in general oak maturation gives aromas of butter, toffee, caramel, vanilla, spice and butterscotch. One of the main tasks of the winemakers is to harmoniously balance all these components into one great bottle of wine.

Cheers! Life is too short to drink bad wine.

Chris Reckord is an independent wine consultant who operates DeVine Wine Services with his wife Kerri-Anne. Chris & Kerri are also part-owners of Jamaica’s first and only wine-only bar -Bin 26 Wine Bar. Please send your questions and comments to creckord@gmail.com . Follow us on twitter.com/DeVineWines

What I am drinking this week: 2008 Château d’Esclans Côtes de Provence Rosé

It is not too often that a rosé makes you sit up and take notice. I recently tasted a wine from a producer in Provence, France, called Chateau d’Esclans that made me do just that. Hailed as one of the world’s best Rosés, the Château d’Esclans Côtes de Provence Rosé is dry, but not too dry. Its light strawberry sweetness didn’t overwhelm the palate. Creamy, soft, complex, very good length, with a hint of oak. It had a slight smooth chalkiness with mineral flavours, with a fantastic finish. This is a rosé you could drink all night, and that I did.