Wine 101: Basic Wine Terms

Welcome to my Wine 101 Series! I will be sprinkling in Wine 101 articles to aid in your learning process. My goal here is to help you understand basic wine terms. If that helps you feel classy and smart next time you’re drinking wine with friends, well that’s a nice bonus. 

Be honest…how many of you have swirled a glass of wine and said “wow that wine has nice legs” because you couldn’t think of anything else to say? 

Pro Tip: Don’t comment on a wine’s legs, it shows you’re a novice right off the bat. No shame in the leg game, but we’ll save that for later.

Body: Body is essentially how the wine feels in your mouth when you drink it. Is it light? Is it heavy? Understanding the body of the wine will help you identify what kinds of wines you like. Ever hear someone say “I LOVE a big Napa Cab” ? Well, other than sounding a little pretentious, that means that this person should be looking for full-bodied wines. Next time you take a sip of a wine, swirl it around in your mouth and try to pay attention to the “weight” and structure of it.

Corked: Corked wine is also known as a wine impacted by cork taint. Essentially a chemical reaction caused by TCA (trichloroanisole) makes the wine smell like wet or soggy cardboard. The wine will taste flat usually too. This won’t harm you to drink, but it’s never worth drinking a corked bottle. You will usually only experience this with bottles with natural cork, rather than synthetic or screw caps. This is why it’s important to smell your wine before tasting it! Also, it makes you look cool and sophisticated. 

Quick Story Time: Back in 2015, before we lived in California, we took a trip with friends to San Francisco and decided to do a wine tour in Sonoma. We were in our early-mid twenties and weren’t taking the experience too ~seriously~ (we were basically just trying to get drunk). Our Tour Guide/Sommelier wasn’t too impressed with us and was trying his very best to teach us. He taught us about corked wine earlier in the day. At our last winery visit of the day we were giggling and enjoying ourselves and one of my friends took a sniff of the new glass of wine they poured and said “I think this wine is corked.” The Somm rolled his eyes, but wanting to get rid of this drunk group he took a sniff, and to his surprise the wine WAS corked! He was impressed and quickly opened a new bottle. All this to say, trust yourself. Sometimes the novice drunk 23 year old can call something out in a wine that is 100% accurate. In other words…

Earthy: If a wine tastes earthy it doesn’t necessarily mean it tastes like dirt. Earthy can mean that the wine tastes dry with some kind of earth component (soil, forest, mushroom, etc.). Often this is reflective of the region and terroir that the wine is from – more on that later.

Finish: The Finish of the wine is all about how long the flavor of the wine stays with you. A long finish is usually indicative of a good wine (for the most part) that has some complexity and age. If the wine taste doesn’t linger for very long after you take a sip that usually means it’s a short finish.

Legs: *Sigh* Like I mentioned above, I know you’ve all heard someone say “this wine has great legs.” Truly nothing shows that someone knows nothing about wine more than this comment. I’m sorry to say it, but it’s better that you hear it from me. The legs of the wine are the tear-shaped droplets inside the glass that drip down after swirling the glass. The legs can indicate that the wine is high in alcohol. Aside from that, it doesn’t mean much, so let’s move on.

Oak: A lot of wine can be aged in oak barrels, which can impart flavors of vanilla, caramel, honey, other “toasty” flavors, etc.. For white wines you’ll mostly see this in Chardonnay. Oak is more common in red wines. Some winemakers will use oak chips instead of oak barrels, since the cost of new barrels can be so high. Barrels really only have a life span of 1-3 years. 

Tannin: Have you ever taken a sip of black tea with nothing in it and had that astringent and somewhat bitter taste in your mouth? That is tannin. Tannin is naturally occurring in grape skins (also tea leaves and other foods). Because the tannin comes from the skin of the grape you will mostly only have tannins in red wines, since they are fermented with their skins*. Wines with high tannins usually mean they can age for a while. Whether you like tannic flavors or not can be another good indicator on what kind of wines you like.

*I will talk more about the fermentation process in the future. 

Terroir: Terroir is one of my favorite wine terms because it means so much, yet it can also be kind of vague. Terroir encompases all of the environmental characteristics that affect a wine (i.e. soil, climate, sun exposure, elevation, etc.). Terroir is what makes wines from each region have the same general characteristics, while also letting each winemaker have a sense of individuality. I guarantee talking about the terroir of a grape will be much more impressive than talking about the legs.

Varietal: Varietal means wines that are made from a specific grape (Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, etc.). This will tell you what grape(s) you are actually drinking in your glass. If a bottle says Chardonnay, that means the bottle you are consuming is either MOSTLY or ENTIRELY Chardonnay. Depending on the region and the wine laws in place, sometimes a wine bottle can be labeled as Chardonnay but also have a small percentage of another varietal in it like Semillon or Chenin Blanc. Wine laws are a nightmare because they are not universal. More on that to come when I have the energy to tackle that mess.

Vintage: Vintage is the year that the grapes were harvested. If you buy a bottle that says “Cabernet Sauvignon 2015,” that will mean that the grapes in that bottle were grown and harvested in 2015. I will get into good vintages for popular regions later on. For starters just stick to the rule that most white and rosé wines should be consumed young (the wine should be young, you don’t have to be).

Hopefully this article will help you look slightly cooler the next time you’re drinking wine while out. Until next time!