Term: Austere

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran. Today we are going to discuss a term that is sometimes confusing when used to describe wine. That is the descriptive term “austere”.

When wine taster’s are identifying their impressions of wine they use a large vocabulary of adjectives. Some of which are obvious as to what aspect of the wine they are referring and others that are more vague and imprecise. To me one of those confusing terms is austere. According to the dictionary austere means severe in manner or appearance, or simple and without ornament. So how that translates to wine is confusing to many of us. However, what tasters are referring to is the fact that the wine is not rich or generous, the opposite of the term “fleshy”.  So the wines may be hard and tannic, extremely dry, thin or high in acidity. I don’t look at austere as a negative term I think it is a term that describes a wine with a compelling severity in some aspect of its flavor profile. And often a highly tannic red wine can be very pleasant with fatty meats, even better than a less tannic wine. Another reason that the term austere may not be a negative one is - it may be describing a stage that the wine is going through as often wines described as austere when they are young do improve with age.  So when you read the term “austere” in the description of a wine, read on and see what else the writer has to say. Remember to send your wine questions to Linda at vine to wine dot net and thank you for joining me on today’s Vine to Wine.