Great Wine Made Simple - Andrea Immer [17]
There is one other very important trait that oak adds to wine—cost. Barrels are expensive to buy clean, and maintain. They also wear out, and must be replaced far more often than stainless steel tanks, which are virtually indestructible. All of this adds up to higher production costs, which invariably get passed along in the bottle price. That makes our oak tasting very important. Let your taste decide about oakiness. Those who like that style will be willing to pay extra for it. And those who don’t can save their money.
Tannic
The word may sound obscure, but this is one you will definitely want to get to know. In the last tasting in this chapter, we will learn the meaning of tannic, the word used to describe red wines with a lot of the substance known as tannin. You may recognize the word from the process of tanning leather, and yes, tannin is the substance used. In a wine context, tannin is a natural component of the skins, stems, and seeds of wine grapes. That is why it is notable in red wines, not white—the juice, while soaking with the grape skins to get the red color, also soaks up the tannin.
To the taster, tannin in wine is sensed not as a flavor but as a texture that you feel on the tongue and, when there is a lot of it, all over the insides of your mouth. It is probably a texture with which you are already familiar. Red table grapes often have noticeable tannin, as do other fruits—persimmons and plums immediately come to mind.
Wine tasters describe the feeling of tannin in many ways—drying, puckery, velvety. I have used them all, depending on the wine. I tell the waiters I teach that the feeling on the tongue is like accidentally biting the stringy part of the banana peel rather than the banana, or drinking hot tea that has steeped for too long (tea has tannin, too).
The amount of tannin in red wine can cover a broad spectrum, from low to high. Here is how I describe the range:
Low tannin: Hardly noticeable; the wine feels silky.
Medium tannin: Noticeable dry, tacky feeling, but smooth rather than harsh. (A waiter I once worked with told me, upon tasting this style, that it felt as though the inside of her mouth had been wallpapered in velvet and suede—the entire room agreed.)
High tannin: Ouch! Your tongue feels very puckered, dried out, and leathery.
The varied tannin levels in different wines are due to three main factors:
The grape: The amount of tannin in red grapes varies from one type to the next, according to the thickness of the grape skins—thicker-skinned grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon have more tannin than thinner-skinned varieties such as Pinot Noir. We talked about this in the last chapter in connection with color in red wines—the thicker-skinned Cabernet Sauvignon had a darker color than the thin-skinned Pinot Noir. Now you can see the obvious connection between tannin and color—as a rule of thumb, the darker the color of a red wine, the more tannin.
Amount of skin contact: You will remember this winemaking term also from our color discussion. It is the amount of time the grape skins soak with the juice: The longer the soak, the more tannin in the wine. The Zinfandel grape is a good example. When it is made as a blush wine, white Zinfandel, there is no tannin, and the wine feels completely smooth and crisp like a white wine (hence the name). But when it is made with long skin contact, as in a red Zinfandel, there is a lot of color and tannin.
Age of the wine: In everyday buying and drinking situations, this is not a factor, because most wines are rightly bought and consumed young. But some classic wine types, known for their very high tannin, can be allowed to age to reduce the harshness of the tannins. What happens during the aging process is that the tannins soften and integrate with the rest of the wine’s components, making for a smoother, more balanced, and enjoyable drinking experience than when the tannins were so prominent