Fruit-driven

Fruit-driven describes a wine where the fruit takes centre stage in both aroma and flavour. When you taste a fruit-driven wine, the fresh or ripe fruit notes are what you notice first, while other impressions such as spice from barrel ageing, herbs or earthy tones recede into the background. So it is about what dominates the experience, rather than about the wine's colour or sweetness. A fruit-driven wine can easily be completely dry.

It is a useful term because it gives you a hint about the style before you have even taken a sip. Many rosé wines are good examples: they are typically fresh and fruit-driven with a light body and good acidity. The same goes for a number of light red wines and white wines, where the fruit is set free without heavy oak character. You will often come across words like berries, apple, peach, citrus or stone fruit, depending on the grape.

A common misunderstanding is that fruit-driven means sweet. It does not. Sweetness is about the residual sugar in the wine, whereas fruit-driven simply describes that the fruit flavour fills the most space in the impression. A fruit-driven wine is often juicy and welcoming and lends itself well to relaxed drinking pleasure, ideally while it is still young and fresh.