The flavours of wine

A good wine is one from which no specific favour stands out but it’s well-balanced as a whole, leaving an aromatic palate and a lengthy pleasant taste.

When tasting a wine, the taster must sip at it and keep it in the mouth the enough time for the tongue to perceive the different flavours, shaking it between the cheeks and the palate. Even half-opening the lips is possible to inhale some air to oxygenate the wine in the mouth and it will allow harmonizing the existing acids.

The wine acids play an important part in the taste of itself. The correct acid taste must give freshness and aggressiveness sensation and fruity impression. The excess acidity gives a greenness and aggressiveness impression.

The temperature the wine is served has a great influence in the acid taste. Thus, drinking a wine at 18º C seems to be less acid than if you drink it at 10º C. However, the white wines are more pleasant drinking them cooler, between 5º C and 7º C.

A wine with a good acidity, without being excessive, defines as fresh if it causes a freshness sensation. On the contrary, a wine rich in alcohol causes hot sensation and is considered warm or burning, if the alcohol content is excessive.

The taste also provides us other tactile sensations so as softness when passes through the mouth. A wine with a good pass through the mouth is a soft, silky and velvety wine. Otherwise, it will be rough, astringent or hard.

The white and rosé wines are, normally, light wines; while red ones are usually wines with good body, strong and fleshy.