20 wine terms true wine lovers should know how to use

According to wine geeks, Moscato is a summer wine. But people who love Moscato love it all year round – not just when the weather gets warm. Truth be told, your favourite wine is “not dictated by the solstice; it’s actually dictated by personal preferences,” according to Tim Hanni, MW (master of wine) and author of Why You Like the Wines You Like. These preferences are called your “vinotype.” Much like a personality trait, your vinotype combines your own personal sensory sensitivities with your culture, tradition and life experiences to dictate your wine preferences. “We just have this insane premise that wine’s supposed to match to the season, or the food, or some other greater glory,” says Hanni. Instead, he says, “match the wine to the diner, not to the dinner.”

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This is the single most important word in the world of wine, according to Hanni. But it can be a confusing one too. For one person, a smooth wine can be rich and flavourful, but for another, it can be almost painfully bitter and unpleasant. “This is why wine language is such a mess, because it’s so important to learn about your vinotype to understand which of these sensory worlds you live in and how that correlates to the wines you’re going to like,” says Hanni.

The minute the wine hits the tip of your tongue, the first thing you often taste is its sweetness. But there are different levels of a wine’s sugary flavour, according to Hanni. “It can be just a tiny little bit or a moderate amount, all the way up to really, really sweet in some exceptional cases, depending on how the grapes were grown,” he says. When wine is fermented, the fermentation process converts sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. The sweeter the wine, the less fermentation and the more sugar.

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On the opposite end of the spectrum, the term “dry” essentially means anything that is not sweet. Yet even this characteristic is actually relative, dictated by your tastes and preferences rather than some hard and fast rules, says Hanni. Because dryness and sweetness are indicated by the presence or the absence of natural sugars, a dry wine’s sugars are completely fermented.

If you’re sipping a varietal wine, your boozy beverage was named after the type of grape that was used to produce it. Think Chardonnay, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon, all of which get their monikers from specific grape varieties. And rest assured that you’re drinking the wine in its purest form – in Australia, the wine has to be made up of at least 85 percent of that variety to bear the name.

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It’s no coincidence that wines like Champagne, Burgundy, and Bordeaux have counterparts as French cities; in fact, they’re named after the regions where they are produced. “Tradition and laws determine what styles of wines are allowable and what grape varieties are allowed to be planted,” Hanni says, creating a one-of-a-kind alcohol. The wine isn’t genuine if it’s not from the region it’s named after.

Toss out everything you thought you knew about wine aromas – according to Hanni, the experts have it wrong. “Think of an aroma as something singular that you can pick out when you smell the wine,” Hanni says. Fruits, flowers, spices, oak and smoke are all common wine aromas, a byproduct of the fermenting process.

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Like a bouquet of flowers, a bouquet in the wine world means a collection of aromas. “If you consider the word aroma sort of analogous to a single flower, then a bouquet is a collection of all the smells,” Hanni says. A bouquet of honey, chocolate truffles, and subtle oak fragrances, for example, indicates that the wine is ageing, releasing a wide array of mouthwatering smells.

When entering into the world of wine weights, metaphors abound. “A heavy wine, metaphorically, means that it’s strongly flavoured, that it’s darkly coloured, and it’s typically high in alcohol,” Hanni explains. Cabernet Sauvignon and other strong, red blends are great examples of “heavy” wines. But don’t be fooled: What are traditionally deemed heavy wines are actually lighter in real weight than “light” wines like Moscato.

The astringency of a wine is a touch sensation that occurs in your mouth, making your tongue feel dry the moment you take a swig. It’s usually associated with stronger, more intense red wines, which have more compounds that act as preservatives, called tannins. It’s the tannins that turn your mouth into leather. “Some people are oblivious to it, and people who are drinking the sweet wines find it this horrible, disgusting drying of the mouth,” Hanni says. Plus, the wine will taste very bitter, a side effect also associated with tannin (which naturally occurs in leaves and sticks), but even sweet wines, such as port, can be astringent.

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