Plum, tobacco, grass, spice, etc. flavors

[jamesngalveston]

eagle rare is very good...i stay completely away from Irish are Scottish .
More USA and Canadian. I started with bourbon years ago... i think its a little more harsh...but again we all taste things diffrently...

 

[seth8530]

Yeah, agreed glad to see an eagle rare fan. Bourbon varies greatly.. but I agree, it tends to be more intense. What kind of USA whiskie do you drink now days?

 

[wood1954]

My taste buds are pretty burnt out after drinking black coffee, eating dark chocolate and drinking lots of red wine for 40 years. my sense of smell is pretty bad too, probably getting Alzheimers, but when i was at a winery in Washington this summer, i was appalled at the writer of the label on one of the red wines when he stated that it had hints of pork belly. I think sometimes people drink too much wine while writing up these reviews of their wines. How ever if i was smarter i could identify the wonderful flavors in a good wine

 

[Geronimo]

As long as the marital tool box is still working the rest is academic.

 

[JohnT]

I would not take a "flavor analysis" from the back of a bottle. Lets face it, it is really advertising. Would you really expect to find.. "Wine has a gentile aroma of old sweat socks with just a hint of dirty diaper"? Of course not.

This is usually BS gear more to selling the wine in question rather than giving an honest impression of the wine.

That is not to say that these flavors do exist and can be detected by just about anyone. Right now, I have a 2012 cab (85% cab, 15% merlot) that has a bold black cherry / raspberry flavor. I would offer a taste, then say "take another sip and think of black cherries". Most of the time, I get a shocked "sonofabee-ach!" reaction.

There are a variety of "wine tasting kits" out on the market. The kit usually comes with several tiny bottles of perfume that closely resemble the flavor or aorma components in most wines. They are expensive, but they really do work in bringing flavor components into the foreground of your mind.

 

[Boatboy24]

Yeah, agreed glad to see an eagle rare fan. Bourbon varies greatly.. but I agree, it tends to be more intense. What kind of USA whiskie do you drink now days?

Another fan of Eagle Rare here. They have a 17 year old version too. Very nice.

 

[Pumpkinman]

I understand what everyone is saying regarding the flavor profiles such as "hint of tobacco and leather" and so on, but part of the reason that I make my own wine and beer is that I choose to think outside the box and taylor them to our palette.

I've made a habit of purchasing many different vintages of my favorite wines to try to see just how different these wines are, and the range of flavor profiles and characteristics they each have, and to get an idea of what I might expect from mine.

If anyone here that has made wine for any length of time can tell me that different variables such as yeasts or fermentation temps and length of aging and the vessel used to age, just to name a few, don't bring out different complexities, I'd feel really bad for that person, in my opinion, they would be better off drinking boxed wine.

I will agree that at first, when I would read the reviews of particular wines that read "hint of plum and cherries" I thought it was nuts, and yes, at first, because of the reviews, I actually tasted plum and cherries. Now, after having the opportunity to drink a lot of good wine, I can pick out a lot of these characteristics, don't get me wrong, I don't consider myself a wine snob, but I do feel that I'm creative enough that my palate can distinguish various flavors.

As far as the folks reviewing wines, although some may be a bit bizarre, their palettes are a bit more refined, here's a test for you take an Amarone or Valpolicella ripassa, decant for 2 - 3 hrs, or a 2006 Brunello and decant for 2 hrs and tell me that you can't pick out at least 2 or 3 flavors, I'd be real surprised, and probably recommend a nice bottle of two buck chuck....lol

Ask yourself why you make particular wines?
Do you make them because they are "red" or "white", or is it because you prefer certain flavors and characteristics?

There are so many variables and tools available to us to specifically taylor our wine to our individual tastes this thread almost surprised me.
Ok, my rant is done, I hope that no one is offended.

 

[JohnT]

Pumpkinman,

I do not see you as thinking outside the box (based on your last post). It is more like you are simply employing your own tastes and stye to this, our common art form.

I could not agree with you more. Every technique you employ and every decision you make will affect the finished wine. Through experience, most folks tailor their process to suit their tastes. I find that this is a very common thing and not so far "outside the box" as you might think.

To me, and example of being truely "outside the box" would be to make a wine the not only tastes great, but also can double as a carpet cleaner. Now that would be something!

 

[wineforfun]

Well, for me personally, I just want a good tasting wine (according to my likes) and one that gives me the buzz too. Other than that, I don't care if my Zin has hints of leather, mulberry and rock.

A local wine shop here in town was telling me that the wines he carries (mostly mid to upper end) are made with grapes only. No sugar or yeast added, only the natural sugars and yeast from the grapes. Being new to winemaking, I had no idea you could do this. I thought you had to add sugar and yeast to make wine. So with that said, that made me wonder even more how these wine labels were touting blackberry, mocha, spice, etc. when only grapes were being used.

My original question was how the label was promoting these other flavors when the wine was made with only grapes. I understand it isn't really a blackberry, raspberry, etc. flavor that is added, it is just something similar to that taste, per se. And I fully agree that when you are told "it tastes like coffee" your mind will make it "taste like coffee".

Good discussion.

 

[JohnT]

I had no idea you could do this. I thought you had to add sugar and yeast to make wine.
Good discussion.

Most wineries do not add sugar since wine grapes (when ripe) should contain enough sugar on their own.

Most wineries do add yeast, but a significant portion does not (opting instead for the natural yeasts that form on the grapes clusters while in the vineyard).

 

[jswordy]

Most wineries do not add sugar since wine grapes (when ripe) should contain enough sugar on their own.

Most wineries do add yeast, but a significant portion does not (opting instead for the natural yeasts that form on the grapes clusters while in the vineyard).

Ah, I'd have to disagree on sugar. Out West, most wineries do not add sugar. In fact it is illegal in CA. But in the East it is pretty common, because eastern grapes usually do not reach adequate Brix without chaptalization.

 

[seth8530]

Yep, and many fruits are not near sweet enough without sugar additions.

 

[JohnT]

I was saying that most do not add sugar. If you tally all of the wine produced globally, you will find this to be correct.

Some do, but most do not.

 

[Thig]

If anyone here that has made wine for any length of time can tell me that different variables such as yeasts or fermentation temps and length of aging and the vessel used to age, just to name a few, don't bring out different complexities, I'd feel really bad for that person, in my opinion, they would be better off drinking boxed wine.

I agree and when I said tasting notes are BS I did not mean to imply that different wines don't have different flavors. What I mean is that to the average wine drinker, and I consider myself average, they really don't help. After all, what does "Lapsang souchong tea" or "boysenberry pate de fruit" taste like? If the tasting notes are written for people who actually know what a "lush linzer torte" is, then fine.

 

[Stressbaby]

I've tried lots of exotic tropical fruit with my old fruit buddies. I've found that fruit descriptions hinge on having a good "palate vocabulary."

You eat the longan, and you say, "hmm, OK, tastes good, tastes like a longan." Then someone says, "These longan really taste like cantaloupe." Holy cow! These really do taste like a cantaloupe!
Langsat - grapefruit!
Durian - vanilla flan from a garbage dumpster!

Anyway, my point is that initially I found myself with a very narrow vocabulary with which to describe the flavors. The more you try, and the more often you try, the more familiar you become with the distinct flavors (and aromas) and the better able you are to describe them to others.

 

[wood1954]

wine tasting class

This got me thinking so i looked for a wine tasting class online to help with my vocabulary and here is one i found that's free.
http://www.freewinecourse.com/
I might look into it after dinner tonite.

 

[seth8530]

Run through it and tell me what ya think.

 

[vernsgal]

This is usually BS gear more to selling the wine in question rather than giving an honest impression of the wine.

That is not to say that these flavors do exist and can be detected by just about anyone. Most of the time, I get a shocked "sonofabee-ach!" reaction.

T

I have to agree with you!

 

[Geronimo]

I agree and when I said tasting notes are BS I did not mean to imply that different wines don't have different flavors. What I mean is that to the average wine drinker, and I consider myself average, they really don't help. After all, what does "Lapsang souchong tea" or "boysenberry pate de fruit" taste like? If the tasting notes are written for people who actually know what a "lush linzer torte" is, then fine.

I think they want to impress the rest of the world with their worldly palate. Believe it or not, you've eaten pate de fruit... remember those sugar coated jellied fruit candies we see around Christmas? I guess they could say "tastes like a fruit roll up" but somehow it's just not the same

 

[seth8530]

My thoughts on trying to find flavours in wine or whiskie. First, taste the wine or whiskie and enjoy it. Try and identify whatever flavours that might come across to you. Next, find a well respected online review tasting and see what they find. See how that matches up with what you found. Taste it again and see if you can find what they found.

Next, get another bottle of wine or pour of whiskie and see if you can apply what you have learned to your next tasting. After doing this enough you might be amazed at how much sophisticated your palate gets. It takes more than just drinking to develop the ability to taste all of these wonderful flavours that these people talk about, it takes practice and work on the part of the taster to be able to develop the ability to find and identify these things.


As far as the stuff goes that gets printed on the bottles... It is meant to sell the wine, and thus I would take an independent reviewers tasting notes with much more respect. However, I do believe that they tend to do a fairly good job at telling you what to expect from that particular bottle of wine.