Great Wine Made Simple - Andrea Immer [32]
Complex Ordinary wines can seem just wet and ho-hum. A complex wine commands your attention, revving up your senses with its scents, flavors, and textures, and luring you back to the glass for more.
Dry-farmed This term has zero meaning to the average label reader. Now you know that excess water or easy access to water causes the vine to waste its energy on leaf growth rather than on producing ripe and flavorful grape clusters. Growers who dry farm often do so to coax the maximum flavor from the grapes. They may put this term on the back label because they want you to be aware of the extra efforts they make to increase quality.
Old vines Keep your eyes peeled for this term. It often means wine with extra complexity. As vines mature, they are capable of producing grape clusters with greater complexity and flavor, which can translate right to the wine. Not all wines from old vine sources mention that on the label, but here are some styles to look for: red Shiraz wines from Australia, red Zinfandels from California, and many French wines, where the label term is vieilles vignes (vee-ay VEEN-yuh).
Poor soil For an already dubious wine buyer, “poor soil” on a back label could seem like a warning sign. But as we have learned, poor soil encourages the vine to concentrate on fruit ripening rather than leaf growth, leading to better quality. Similarly, “well-drained soil” is good because wet vineyard soils can lead to rot and other vine ailments, while soils with good drainage promote healthier vines.
Terroir (tear-WAHR) This is a French term referring to the distinctive growing conditions of each vine plot (vineyard location and slope, weather and soil). Many, including me, believe terroir is displayed in the wine as a unique and special taste character. Other specialty products capture a similar idea of distinctive growing areas—Vidalia onions from Georgia; prosciutto di Parma from Parma, Italy; Kona coffee from Hawaii; and so on.
Unfiltered This term is both trendy and controversial. That is because the influential wine reviewer Robert M. Parker, Jr., has criticized the use of filtration, common in winemaking, because he believes it strips the wine of flavor and character. Some wineries agree with him, others do not. I don’t think you need to worry whether this term is on your wine label. It is not a guarantee you will love the wine.
Yield, low yield Lower vine yields mean fewer clusters and less juice produced per plant. This usually gives more flavorful, complex-tasting grapes and wines.
Should you memorize these words? If you want to, but it is certainly not necessary. The memorable attributes of wines that you enjoy will make a big impression on their own without you working hard to memorize a vocabulary list. When you do find styles that you especially like (or dislike), refer to this chapter and put words to it—a smooth Pinot Noir, a buttery Chardonnay, a spicy Shiraz, a grassy Sauvignon Blanc. This will enable you to read labels and find similarly styled wines on future shopping trips, or to comfortably describe your style preferences to a wine merchant or waiter. Still more power to you, and we haven’t even addressed all the fruit descriptions on the label.
Read on, precocious taster. In Chapter 4 we will mine the wine label and raid the produce section so that you can understand all those fruit-style descriptions. I will also give you a road map to help predict which fruit styles you are likely to find in a wine just by looking at its label or wine list entry.
CHAPTER FOUR
A Flavor Map of the Wine World
“… flavors of dark cherries and raspberries …”
“… apples and pears with a hint of citrus …”
“… rich, tropical fruit flavors …”
This is a major turning point on our wine route. We are leaving the test track of wine tasting, where we defined our fruit flavor descriptions