A white wine with "grip"?

Last night I popped a 2014 Marc Bredif Vouvray Classic. It happened to pair fantastically with my fried catfish po boy and fries :slight_smile: .

One thing I noticed though was that when I gave it a swirl in my mouth, without food, I noticed “grip” to the wine, similar to what I’d expect from a tannic red. Am I crazy? If not, what would cause this in a white?

Could you equate it to bitterness rather than grip?

Hey Brian - interesting question. In this case, I don’t think so. This seemed different than any type of bitterness that I’ve detected in wines before, and which I consider to be unpleasant.

It was much more like “astringent”, kind of like what happens when one drinks tea where the tea bag has steeped for too long. Or possibly “chalky”, not in sense of tasting chalky/minerally flavors, but of a chalky consistency when swirling it around my mouth.

Chalky, tannic and astringent are all very different descriptors.

Limited CT notes describe a bitterness and high acidity. Prior vintages also have bitter notes.

Sounds like a bad wine.

Ok looking a definition of the word “astringent”, I retract that. Yeah, it wasn’t astringent, or unpleasant in any way.

It tasted quite consistent with every other young Vouvray I’ve consumed. I wouldn’t consider the bottle flawed. In fact it was wonderful.

I did not detect any form of bitterness that others have detected based on CT notes, and as I’ve mentioned previously I am sensitive to bitterness and do not prefer wines that feature that quality. There was a great deal of acidity, but then, I like that…

I just happened to notice a thing that I haven’t really experienced in a white wine and am struggling for a descriptor. If “chalky” isn’t it, “grip” is. And again, I only really noticed it while swirling in my mouth. But I can’t think of any other way to describe it.

Friction. Raveneau has it. I love whites like that.