Wine tasting descriptors that make you RUN

WINE TALK
21

“Steroids”

22

touch of Brett…

TTT

23

buttery

popcorn

coconut

toasty oak

24

This. [thumbs-up.gif]

Also agree on ‘steroids’ and ‘mocha’.

Creamy doesn’t make me run. I just can’t figure out what the hell it refers to. Do people really taste cream in their wine? Or is it about mouthfeel? Either way…I don’t get it.

25

gobs…

26

Ripe
Roasted
Chocolate
Vanilla
Coffee
Butterscotch
Banana (synonymous with Georges Duboeuf)
Creamy
Polished
Low acid
Blockbuster
Don’t walk, run

27

Going in a different direction for a moment from the AFWE pile-on, one thing I really dislike is spritz or carbonation.

I feel as though, even when you can shake or aerate that out of the wine, the wine then tastes kind of flat and listless afterwards, more than a wine that hadn’t started out spritzy.

And then, when you complain about it to the winery, you’re often met with this “it just has some trapped CO2 to resolve, it’s not a flaw, just give it some time or air” kind of response that I find quite frustrating. It’s one thing when the wine is corked and everyone just knows that’s what it is, but spritzy red wine often gets you some uncomfortable push-back from the winery.

Not a fan.

28

“Luxurious oak”, “warm”, “soft”, “hedonistic”.

Especially that luxurious oak baffles me. Sounds like a real oxymoron.

29

Thirding or fourthing ‘hedonistic’ as a warning that things will be hot/pruney. I do personally love creamy as a descriptor though; I think it refers to a thick texture/mouthfeel with a lot of glycerin

30

Leve’s notes on Pavie encapsulate so much of what I do NOT want in a Bordeaux, and generally one of the many notes he uses would be enough to make me steer away:

2000 Chateau Pavie

When you swirl, glycerin drips from the of the glass lip like > wax from a melting candle> . > Elixir > of blackberry, > jammy fruits> , spice box, minerals, > molasses> , > sweet licorice, vanilla > and coffee > explode in your face> . Incredible levels of concentrated Bordeaux are found in this wine! The amount of > chocolate drenched> , ripe and > over ripe fruit > that fills every nook and cranny of your palate is mind blowing! This is so thick, you want to eat it. And you probably could! Perfectly in balance, this is what > hedonism > and great wine is all about. The seamless finish lasts over one minute.

2005 Chateau Pavie

97 points - Tasted Nov 5, 2012
An intoxicating aroma of smoke, licorice, earth, black cherry, orange rind, incense, limestone, truffles, fresh cut herbs, coffee bean and blackberry demand to get noticed. Deep in color, with visible glycerine in the tears that stain the glass, the wine offers > fat layers > of > ripe, juicy, sweet> , pure, black plum, > blueberry> , dark chocolate and spice. The wine continued to improve in the glass for at least 4 hours. It might have kept going, but I could not keep my hands off it. The delicious finish lasts for at least 45 seconds. While some tasters found this wine to be over the top when young, it’s calmed down and offers a great, tasting experience. If you have multiple bottles, it’s worth popping a bottle to see how 2003 Pavie is developing.

97 points - Tasted Jun 30, 2012
Black cherry, > blueberry, licorice> , crushed stone, espresso and > cherry liqueur > get the perfume going. This potent > elixir is rich, fat, round, and lush > in the mouth. The powerful finish is filled with intense, > ripe, licorice coated > black and blue fruits. This exciting Bordeaux wine, does not show any signs of over ripeness that is found in some wines from this hot, dry vintage.

Not picking on Leve, he loves this stuff, and the note pretty much tells me that I will not. I have had multiple bottles of these Pavies, in various settings. They are over-the-top to me.

31

Yeah, I can’t say that those sound all that pleasing to me. It’s funny that in some circles “unctuous” is a good thing, when its dictionary definition is “excessively or ingratiatingly flattering; oily.” Not a particular fan of oleaginous wine.

32
33

That word makes me run. To a dictionary.

34

useful w/r/t opposing counsel

35

Timed finishes.

36

Me too. The other one that he uses in a seemingly positive sense that is always negative to me is “liqueur-like”.

This seems to be all the rage right now among critics and merchants alike, and it’s absolutely ridiculous. I see it used to describe so many different styles of wine that have nothing in common that it’s clearly a meaningless term used only to get attention. Unless, maybe, some of these people have a really bizarre fetish and it just means “I really like this one.”

37

Would you prefer: masochistic?

38

Flaccid.

39

The opposite of masochistic is sadistic. Calling a wine hedonistic amounts to saying that the wine follows a certain philosophical system, which is absurd. Of course, in its linguistically sloppy way, what it really means is that the wine offers mindless pleasures, which is still not the opposite of masochistic. And, more to the point, the people who object to the word object to the style of wine it is almost always applied to.

40

Are you going to tell us what the opposite of flaccid is?