03/21/06 Body

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran and of the many terms used to describe wine, one of the most often misunderstood is the term Body. The term Body has nothing to do with the flavor of the wine. Rather, it refers to the actual weight of the wine. The texture of the wine, and how it feels in your mouth, is the body. Before you even taste a glass of wine you can get an idea what the body will be. Simply swirl it in your glass and observe it. Does the wine cling to the insides of the glass and flow slowly down or the sides? Or does it seem thin and light and not cling much at all? If it lingers on the sides of the glass, you have your first clue that this is probably a fuller bodied wine. Now taste the wine move it around in your mouth and notice how thick it is. One analogy that might help you is to consider the differences in texture of milk; nonfat milk feels light and thin in your mouth, as compared to whole milk, which has a more substantial feeling, followed by cream, which is even thicker and lingers in your mouth much longer. If the wine is like nonfat milk then it has a light body. If it is like cream then it is full bodied wine. A wine that is high in alcohol or is very sweet may have a more substantial mouth feel. That wine would be considered full-bodied. In short, Body is the viscosity of the wine, it is the thickness and the texture of the wine in your mouth. With just a little practice, you will see how easy it is to find the body in your next glass of wine. 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.