I simply assume non-spicy/sweet peppers, typically bell pepper, red, green, or in between. I agree that it is not associate with black pepper and suspect that may be more of a personal association one has assumed to be widespread but is not.
Yeah, I’ve come across this confusion a lot in doing consumer research and tasting panels. A lot of people, frankly, don’t know what capsicum is, and the word capsaicin has developed a surprisingly strong cultural awareness because of the popularity of hot sauces and its use as a topical treatment for arthritis and similar ailments. I’ve seen it quite a few times that people think “capsicum” either means “capsaicin” or that the person is mispronouncing “capsaicin” - including among well informed tasters and industry folks.
2 Likes
That’s just sad.
What I know from my experience, I read a lot of wine descriptions and have never even seen capsicum used. As stated, it is not a general use term and so most advertisers are allergic to it. I have seen green pepper used, but that honestly was only in the last couple years, and more and more all the sudden. Also you say wine can’t have chili heat. But the wines I’d describe as black pepper really do have a bite like hot spice. I once had a wine that listed green chile on the label, and it actually tasted like that. Way more than vegetal, not quite hot, but like a roasted green chile.
1 Like
It seems like maybe you are referencing advertising materials or label descriptions when you say “wine descriptions?” I don’t think that is what most people here are talking about. While I can’t speak much to that, I’ve seen capsicum used in personal and professional tasting notes dozens, if not hundreds of times, including on this board. I especially encountered it a lot in Loire tasting notes as this is a hallmark of Cabernet Franc and was even more so in the days of cooler vintages. It was also more common in Cabernet tasting notes from various places once upon a time, but modern ripeness and preferences have tended to push that quality from the vast majority of modern Cabernets. That said, I still see it pop up from time to time. For my personal taste, these notes can run the gamut from a less pronounced, riper red bell pepper note to a sharper green bell pepper note, again, often in cooler vintages. I remember years ago having a Chilean Cabernet that was like a bite of green pepper and various other assorted green vegetation and was very much not a good wine.
Black pepper, different but also common, I often find in less ripe Syrah, such as marginal N. Rhone regions in cooler vintages, but I also quite commonly experience it in Pineau d’Aunis from the Loire and Pelaverga from Piedmont. White pepper is a common attribute of Gruner, to further complicate things.
2 Likes
Spice is not a flavor, it’s pain. If you get that spicy pain I wine it’s from alcohol.
Because saying bell pepper is not fancy enough for wine. You have to make the peasant more chic.
waiting for tasting notes on jalapeño sauvignon blanc from this thread
And in Britain.
No, I think the difference reflects the fact that some plants weren’t universally dispersed until English English and American English had split. A zucchini is called a courgette in Britain, and an eggplant is an aubergine. There are lots of differences in other food terms, as well.
More famously, most terms referring to cars and railroads – post-Industrial Revolution technology – differ because they were invented a century or so after the American Revolution. An American in a hardware store (an ironmonger in Britain) can also have a hard time getting tools: e.g, a wrench is a spanner.
As Javier said above, if you find heat, that’s alcohol.
The wines that have black pepper notes - like Syrah, Schioppettino, Pineau d’Aunis, Mondeuse - have rotundone, which is the compound that gives black pepper its aroma and taste. However, the peppery heat in black pepper comes from piperine, and wines don’t have piperine, because grapes can’t produce the compound. Ditto for capsaicin. If you detect any heat, that’s from alcohol.
Once? I’ve had countless wines with flavors that are perfectly identical to a green chili. Or other chilis. Ranging from raw, very vegetal green chili to smoky chipotle.
Spice most definitely is a flavor. Hundreds of flavors, actually. For example many Indian foods are VERY spicy that can have heaps of spices, yet show no heat at all.
As for “spicy pain”, you can have tons of different kinds of those: for example the persistent burning heat from capsaicin; the warming piquant feeling from piperine; or the pungent, short-lived burn from allyl isothiocyanate (wasabi). However, as you said, if you get any warming or hot sensations in wine, that comes from alcohol; not from any of these above compounds.
2 Likes
I grew up in England and that is not common usage.
1 Like
To me, Spice is a general term for aromatic spices such as cardamom, nutmeg, cumin, cinnamon, fennel seed, coriander seed. I see these flavours in lots of wines, whether it be fruit or oak derived.
1 Like
Spicy is just pain receptors firing off. There are other flavors within the thing that inform that pain, giving perceived flavor to the pain. Otherwise it’s just different degrees of pain for however hot the pepper is.
Ever had a Rieslaner Auslese from Muller Catoir in the Hans Gunter Schwarz era? The 1998 especially had chili pepper notes, though not heat.
1 Like
Agree with this. Absent additional details, “spice” in a TN is too broad to have any meaning.
1 Like
My point there was that spicy as a general term doesn’t need to include any kind of sensation apart from the flavor of whatever spice there is.
Sure, in English you can use the term “spicy” also to describe the heat of something, but IMO it is always clearer whenever people say that something is hot, if there is chili heat. Afrer all, you can have a dish that tastes hot yet not spicy, or spicy yet not hot. Or both. Or neither. (For example in Finnish language there’s this kind of distinction, as spicy is “spicy” and hot basically translates to “fiery” - as opposed to “hot” that could be understood to mean the temperature.)
I have not, but that is chili flavor, which was not my point. Tons of wines have chili flavors, as I mentioned. I meant that wines don’t have “chili spice”, ie. that heat from chilies.
ITT: we try to one up the old line about “two countries separated by a common language.” By my count we are now up to at least four!
Anyhow, most of the confusion around “what does capsicum mean” is probably just down to it isn’t a term used in US English and it isn’t something where most people will naturally come across the UK/Aus usage. I don’t think I knew that it was a term used for bell/sweet peppers until I was in my 20s, and that was only because I was reading cooking discussion boards where there were people from the commonwealth. In my mind at least it is a more obscure point of divergence, somewhere closer to “spanner” than “flat” or “lorry.”
So I am not shocked that it causes confusion vs “capsaicin” for a US audience. Though if Americans are using it in tasting notes it wouldn’t be the first time we aped English wine writers - the only time I’ve ever called it “petrol” is when discussing Riesling…
1 Like
I lived in London, and that’s where I encountered capsicum for bell pepper.
Fair point. Wine enthusiasts have somewhat of a glossary of their own which has evolved incorporating language and phrasing from different places.