Wine tasting can feel intimidating because we’re often taught to begin with aromas and flavours. What fruit can you smell? Is there vanilla? Is that leather? Tobacco? Wet stone? The problem is that those things are personal. Two people can taste the same wine and describe it completely differently.
We like to start somewhere more useful. Before you worry about what a wine reminds you of, get to grips with its spine: the physical structure that holds everything together. That means looking at five things: body, acidity, tannin, sweetness and finish. Once you understand those, you’ve already got a very good idea of what’s in your glass.
The spine of a wine
Think of this as the wine’s vitals and you’re simply trying to notice what is physically happening on your palate.
Body
Body is the weight of the wine in your mouth.
Does it feel light and delicate? Somewhere in the middle? Or rich, broad and powerful. The body of wine is broadly judged as light, medium, or full, and can be influenced by factors such as ripeness, skins, oak, and alcohol.
A useful shortcut: think about milk. Skimmed milk feels light. Whole milk feels fuller and cream feels fuller still. Wine works similarly.
Acidity
First things first, ALL wines are acidic. Acidity is the bit that makes your mouth water. Take a sip, swallow, then notice what happens. If your mouth immediately starts producing saliva, you’re probably dealing with fairly high acidity.
Acidity is one of the factors that bring freshness and balance to wine and can be influenced by factors such as climate, altitude, and how ripe the grapes were when picked. You might describe it as fresh, crisp, lively, racy or zippy. No citrus-fruit detective work required.
Tannin
Tannin is about texture. It’s particularly noticeable in red wines and can make your mouth feel dry, grippy or slightly rough after you swallow. Think about the sensation you get from drinking strong black tea. Some tannins feel soft, silky or velvety. Others can feel firm, chewy or coarse. The important thing is simply noticing the texture rather than trying to find a flavour.
Sweetness
This one sounds obvious, but it’s surprisingly easy to confuse ripe fruit flavours with actual sweetness. Sweetness is something you can physically detect on the palate. The framework runs from dry through off-dry, medium, and sweet to luscious, depending on how much sweetness remains in the wine. A wine can taste incredibly fruity and still be completely dry. Understanding that distinction alone makes tasting a lot easier.
Finish
Finally, ask yourself one very simple question: how long can I still taste the wine after I’ve swallowed it?
That’s the finish.
It might disappear fairly quickly, or the flavour and texture might hang around for a long time afterwards. The finish of a wine is usually described as short, medium or long. You don’t need a stopwatch, just notice whether the wine vanishes or sticks around for another conversation.
Now add the fun stuff
Once you understand the spine, then you can start layering in appearance, aroma and flavour and this is where tasting becomes personal.
Maybe you get strawberries and someone else gets cherries. You might think a wine smells earthy; your friend thinks it smells like mushrooms. Neither of you has failed the tasting.
The spine of the wine deliberately puts these subjective descriptions after the structural assessment and understanding. The spine gives you the foundations; colour, smell and flavour add the detail.
Colour can give you clues too. For example, lighter and greener tones in white wine can point towards youth and freshness, while deeper colours can suggest greater ripeness, oak or development. Red wines can similarly move from brighter youthful tones towards darker or more developed colours as their style and age change. But they’re clues, not answers.
Taste what’s actually there
Good wine tasting isn’t about having the most elaborate vocabulary in the room. It’s about paying attention.
Start with the wine’s spine: Body. Acidity. Tannin. Sweetness. Finish.
Get comfortable with those five things and suddenly tasting wine becomes much less mysterious. Then, once you know what the wine is physically doing, you can decide whether it smells like blackberries, violets, leather or absolutely nothing you can put your finger on. And that’s completely fine.
The best tasting note is the one that actually means something to you.
