Use Your Wine Words Wisely

We believe that wine is a story of the land and the place in which it grew, making us its keepers, scribes and raconteurs – opening up bottle and soul.  However what words are best to use when telling the story, making sure the translation serves the wine justice?  Language is constantly thrown around by customers, sommeliers and writers alike when trying to best describe the “flavor” “body” and “style” of wine, however some words actually end up hurting the wine due to our prejudged emotions behind them.

All words carry connotations, “the set of attributes constituting the meaning of a term and thus determining the range of objects to which that term may be applied.” This causes an increased pressure as wine lovers to help make sure we tell wine’s stories accurately, allowing their description to shine in not only their best, but also their intended light.  New York Times columnist Eric Asimov explores five words that we should not fear when trying to describe wine:

Bitter – It is not wine writers but history and human nature that give bitterness its biblically negative meaning.

Cold – Bad wines benefit; the cold hides flaws, but good white wines need to warm up to give you all they’ve got.

Dark – Red wines come in myriad hues depending on the grapes, and rarely does darkness correlate with concentration and quality.

Green – Many California cabernet producers fear nothing so much as hearing their wines described as green.

Oak – The problem is not oak, but how winemakers use it.

Read the entire New York Times article here, and be careful with your words!