Editor's note: "We taste wine with four of our five senses: sight, smell, touch, and taste" but the same wine "tasted" by two people will not be perceived identically. And how do we explain sights, aromas and flavors in our glass? Author Meg Maker takes us through the vocabulary of wine, showing us what we have in common when we experience a wine — and how to express it. –Becky Sue Epstein, Editor
On the surface, astringency seems like pornography. It’s easy to recognize, even if it’s difficult to define. The problem is that it isn’t really all that easy to recognize.
This being a manifesto against use of the word “dry” in relationship to wine, I herewith present ten points on why “dry” should be banned from all wine-related speak.
“Tasting” wine, so-called, isn’t only about taste, about the wine’s flavors. It’s also about its color, aromas, temperature, and texture across our palate. Tasting wine requires us to tune into a mix of signals entering our sensorium, then make sense of the mess.