Tasting with Consumers

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran. Today I want to give you a refresher course about a few wine terms important to understanding a wine. I have recently been involved with a great deal of directly tasting wine with consumers. What I have noticed is many of you are not understanding the idea that fruity and sweet are not the same thing. A wine may be very floral or fruity in fragrance, but it does not mean it has a high sugar content. The grape growers and winemakers spend a lot of time and money growing fruit that is of high quality and reflective of the grape variety. It is fruit and it should smell like fruit. That is a good thing. Next - Just because a wine is bone dry does not make it good – so please get over this snobbism about dry versus sweet. Next - Body in wine is not the intensity of the flavor it is the viscosity. Full body does not necessarily mean intense rich flavor, it just means the wine is more viscose or creamier feeling on the palate. Then the final thing I have noticed is so disappointing to me - I have noticed the tendency of many people not to want to try anything new or different. Why is that? What are you so afraid of? I mean the worst thing that will happen is that you pour it out. No harm no foul. The great thing is that you may open up a whole new wine to add to a growing list of the wines you enjoy. And thanks for joining me on today's Vine to Wine.