By Bryan Ergle
Wine basics: Wine is made by fermenting grape juice. Beginners can start with the main styles—red, white, rosé, sparkling and fortified—and learn to describe sweetness, acidity, tannin and body. These terms give you a vocabulary for your own preferences, without needing to become an expert first.
Wine. The very name conjures up specific images for people; the word is equated with wealth and luxury, status and sophistication. It has been held up throughout history as one of those ephemeral concepts going all the way back to the Greek gods, and even before. To this day, no drink speaks to higher refinement in society.
The downside is that, for most people, this concept that is ‘wine’ is intimidating; it is a world of unique terminology, its own language… the ‘sophisticates’ speak to palates and notes and flavors which are alien to a newcomer. Speaking from experience, I know that this alone can be enough to frighten away a potential aficionado. Despite this, the language spoken by wine enthusiasts worldwide does not have to be a barrier to entry. I realize that it is a club of sorts, and that’s the perception. To quote the late George Carlin, “It’s a big club and you ain’t in it!” But you can be!
The simple fact of the matter is that no matter how highfalutin a wine enthusiast may be, or how snobbish they may come across, they all started from zero. Nobody is born with innate wine knowledge. The thing that may be intimidating, as with many things, is the concept of getting into it without having to be an expert, in what seems like a world of experts, and having to spend large amounts of money. These are the first steps that we will endeavor to help you to take.
Right now, the words ‘red’ and ‘white’ indicate colors, and cabernet, sauvignon blanc, and chardonnay are just words you have read on a label, and concepts like ‘fruity’, ‘acidic’, ‘nutty’ and ‘earthy’ are meaningless words regarding wine. The first steps are that you can understand wine without having a huge base of knowledge. Don’t ever let anyone ever tell you otherwise! No matter to whom you are speaking, even the best sommeliers in the world will speak to the fact that the wine experience is largely subjective. As such, the first thing is to understand enough that you can taste wines and, importantly, appreciate what goes into them.
The main wine styles
Let’s start with some basics. Wine is broken down into certain categories; you have red wines – these are obviously red in color, the most common being cabernet sauvignon, merlot, pinot noir and zinfandel (not white zinfandel). White wines, which are not actually white but are typically light yellow or pale in color by contrast, the most common of which are going to be your chardonnays, sauvignon blancs and pinot grigios. Rosé wines have a pink color and can vary in style and sweetness. There are sparkling wines, such as champagnes and proseccos. Finally, there are fortified and dessert wines. While there are a few additions to this if you are getting into the more esoteric, these will encompass most of the wines you will experience and all that you will need to embrace to first learn about and enjoy wine.
How grapes and winemaking shape wine
Before exploring individual grape varieties, it helps to understand where wine comes from. Vineyards differ in climate, soil and growing conditions. An American Viticultural Area (AVA) is a defined grape-growing region recognized by the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau; it is not another word for a microclimate. See TTB’s explanation of AVAs.
Grape growing and harvesting involve choices about ripeness, growing conditions and methods. Once grapes are crushed, yeast converts their sugars into alcohol during fermentation. Aging can change a wine’s character; it is not the process that produces its alcohol. WSET explains wine’s main components.
Why is red wine red?
Most red wine gets its color from contact with grape skins during winemaking. The skins also contribute tannins, which create a mouth-drying sensation; tannin and acidity are different characteristics. Lees are sediment left after fermentation, including yeast—not a name for grape skins. See WSET’s guide to wine color and its wine teaching notes on lees.
While the grape, and its growing environment (terroir), is the true source, the purest source of a wine’s character, it can never be realized without the artistic touch of a knowledgeable vintner. A winemaker who takes those grapes and extracts the juices, ages them in different types of barrels or stainless steel vats or cement vessels, moving them between those containers, making changes along the way, combining different juices from different grapes, changing the conditions of the aging, determining the length of the aging and far, far more to create a finished product that is as much art as it is science and agriculture.
Common grape varieties
For the distinctions between body, tannin and other aspects of texture, see WSET’s guide to mouthfeel.
Understanding now some of the basics that go into wine, let us take a look at a few, just a handful of the most common grape varieties that you are likely to encounter! Note, I’m not going to try my hand, at the moment, in explaining pronunciation – a quick google or YouTube search will be better for that than phonetic typing ever would be!
Cabernet Sauvignon
Cabernet Sauvignon is commonly associated with fuller-bodied red wines and noticeable tannins. Body describes how light or full a wine feels in the mouth; alcohol and other components contribute to that impression. Style varies by growing conditions and winemaking. Aging longer does not, by itself, make a wine more alcoholic.
Pinot Noir
Pinot Noir often produces a lighter-colored, lighter-bodied red wine than Cabernet Sauvignon, though style varies. Its thinner grape skins generally contribute less color and tannin. WSET explains how grape skins influence color and tannin.
Chardonnay
Chardonnay can be made in different styles. Oak aging may add vanilla or woody notes, while unoaked examples present a different expression of the grape. Neither red nor white color alone tells you a wine’s alcohol level; check the bottle’s alcohol-by-volume information.
Pinot Grigio
Pinot Grigio is often associated with lighter-bodied white wines. The specific flavors and texture vary with growing conditions and winemaking; terroir describes the growing environment rather than soil alone.
Sauvignon Blanc
Sauvignon Blanc shows different characteristics depending on growing conditions and winemaking. Fruit and floral aromas describe what you notice; they do not necessarily mean the wine is sweet. Sweetness and acidity are separate tasting characteristics, and wines outside the dessert category can also contain noticeable sweetness.
Sparkling wine and Champagne
Champagne is sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France made under the appellation’s rules. Other sparkling wines have their own origins and production methods. Champagne can be white or rosé; price alone is not a dependable test of a rosé Champagne’s quality. For regional background, visit Comité Champagne.
Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier are Champagne’s principal grape varieties, but they are not the only permitted varieties. Other authorized grapes are used in smaller quantities. See Comité Champagne’s current grape-variety guide.
Begin with your own tasting notes
An advisable start for anybody is to understand enough of the basics that you don’t feel uncomfortable at a restaurant or store placing an order, but that, at the same time, does not mean to be afraid of doing so. Be adventurous, start by trying some of these things and see what you like and what you don’t like. Understand that, at first, wine is going to taste very alien if you are not familiar with it. Admittedly, even I, a sommelier, when I first started found wine unpleasant to drink because my palate had not yet been “built up” to drink. Don’t worry if someone is talking about all of the things that they taste and smell in a particular wine, and all that you can taste is ‘grapes’. We’ve all started there!
But don’t be afraid to take a moment and keep the wine in your mouth, swirl it around, see what little nuances you might find, and understand that what someone else tastes might be completely different from what you do. You may find that the things you notice evoke certain tastes you are familiar with, or more often scents you are familiar with. This is normal, make note of them and make note of the wines that you enjoy, the wines that you do not. And don’t be afraid to press forward.
For your first tastings, keep the focus on what you enjoy and what you notice. You do not need an expensive bottle to begin learning. Ask questions, avoid buying on the label alone, and record your impressions so you can compare them over time. Price, marketing and packaging are not substitutes for your own experience of the wine.
One Reply to “Join the Club: Introduction to Wine”
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Itís nearly impossible to find well-informed people for this topic, but you seem like you know what youíre talking about! Thanks