Welcome to the fourth part of Wine for beginners: Getting started. If you have been through the earlier parts, you have already met the major wine types and tried tasting with your eyes, nose and mouth. Now we are going to get a little wiser about the sensation in the mouth itself.
When you taste a wine, you rarely experience one thing at a time. You experience an interplay. Four building blocks do most of the work: body, acidity, tannin and sweetness. Once you can recognise them individually, it becomes much easier to put words to what you like. And then it also becomes easier to choose your next bottle.
What you will learn
- What body, acidity, tannin and sweetness actually are
- How you sense each of them in the glass
- How you use them to find wine you are fond of
Body: light or full
Body is about how much the wine fills the mouth. Think of the difference between semi-skimmed milk and whipping cream. The semi-skimmed milk feels thin and light, the cream thick and rich. Wine spans the whole spectrum.
A light wine glides past quickly and freshly. A full-bodied wine feels heavier and broader, almost as if it spreads out across the whole mouth. Neither light nor full is better than the other. They simply suit different moments and different dishes.
A rule of thumb: pale wines are often lighter, and dark, powerful wines are often more full-bodied. The sun plays a part too. Grapes from warmer regions typically give a fuller wine, while grapes from cooler places often give something lighter and fresher.
Acidity: the freshness in the wine
Acidity is what makes your mouth water. It is the same fresh, crisp sensation you know from a piece of lemon or a green apple. In wine, acidity is what gives life and energy.
If a wine lacks acidity, it seems flat and a little dull, a bit like a soft drink that has lost its bubbles. If it has plenty of acidity, it tastes fresh and crisp and invites another sip. It is often the acidity that makes a wine feel easy to drink with food.
Just as with body, the sun plays a part. Wines from cooler regions typically have more freshness, while wines from warmer regions are often rounder and softer. Try to notice whether a wine makes you salivate. That is the acidity at play.
Tannin: the dry sensation
Tannin is the one that surprises most beginners, because it is not a taste but a feeling. It is the dry, slightly rough sensation you know from a cup of very strong tea or from the skin of an unripe banana. It settles on the tongue, the gums and the inside of the cheeks and makes the mouth feel slightly puckered.
Tannin is found especially in red wine, because it comes from the skin of the dark grapes. It is one of the reasons that red wine feels more structured and powerful than most white wines.
A little tannin is nothing to be afraid of. In fact, the fine, dry sensation softens when you eat something fatty and juicy alongside, for example a good piece of meat. The fat and the tannins meet and smooth each other out, and suddenly the wine feels rounder. It is one of the most satisfying experiences in the meeting between wine and food.
Sweetness and balance
Sweetness is the easiest to recognise, because we know it from everything from fruit to cake. A wine can be bone dry, sweet or anything in between. We go into more depth on that in the part about dry, off-dry or sweet.
The important thing here is that sweetness rarely stands alone. It plays together with the acidity. A wine with some sweetness and fresh acidity feels well balanced and not at all cloying, because the acidity keeps the sweetness in check. Think of a good homemade lemonade: it is sweet, but the fresh acidity means it still tastes crisp and clean.
And this is precisely where the word balance becomes important. A good wine is not about having a lot of one thing or another, but about the four building blocks playing together, so that none of them shouts out. When body, acidity, tannin and sweetness are in interplay, the wine feels whole. When one of them stands out, that is often what you sense as a little "too much".
In brief
- Body is how much the wine fills the mouth, from light as semi-skimmed milk to full as cream.
- Acidity is the freshness that makes the mouth water and brings the wine to life.
- Tannin is the dry, puckering sensation, especially in red wine, and it is softened by fatty food.
- Sweetness plays together with the acidity, and the balance between them decides whether the wine feels harmonious.
- None of the building blocks is better than the others. It is about the interplay.
Frequently asked questions
How do I tell the difference between acidity and tannin?
Acidity makes the mouth water, like when you taste lemon. Tannin does the opposite: it dries the mouth out and gives a slightly rough feeling on the tongue and gums, like very strong tea. Try to notice whether the mouth becomes more wet or more dry after a sip.
Is a full-bodied wine always better than a light one?
No. It is not about better or worse, but about what you are in the mood for and what you are eating. A light, fresh wine is lovely for a summer day or light dishes, while a full-bodied wine goes well with hearty food. Both have their place.
Ready for the next step?
Now you have got hold of the four building blocks, and you will quickly discover that they turn up again and again when you taste. The next time you open a bottle, try to notice one building block at a time. It sharpens your sense of what you actually like.
In the next part we look at how you get the most out of the wine in the glass. Read on in Serving: Temperature, glass and decanting, where we look at how temperature and glass affect how the wine tastes.
And remember: the best pairing is still the wine you like with the food you like. The building blocks are simply a tool to help you find exactly that. Do drop by our selection and let curiosity lead you on.