Both philosophical thought and common sense tell us that in order to understand a thing fully, we need to be acquainted with its opposite. We identify light because we experience darkness. We recognize attraction because we know revulsion. The concept applies to wine in important ways.
We often hear that a certain Chardonnay is “oaky.” The only way to identify the “oaky” characteristic of Chardonnay or any other white wine depends on having tasted wines that are fermented and aged in stainless steel tanks without any contact with oak barrels. “Secondary malolactic fermentation” is another term often associated with white wine and means that more pronounced malic acid has been converted into softer lactic acid. Once again, we would not be able to identify those white wines unless we knowingly tasted wines without malolactic fermentation. Do you prefer your whites crisp with an acid zing or round and fruity? After you purposefully taste both, you’ll find out. And your taste could evolve to prefer one or the other or embrace both.
The other simple condition that a drinker can observe in both white and red wine is the alcohol content. Whether the wine is 12.5% alcohol or 14.5% has a huge impact on flavor, and learning the difference is a simple matter of reading the label on a bottle. Lower alcohol whites will have more acid while higher alcohol produces a fruitier, seemingly sweeter wine. Developing the ability to make those distinctions goes a long way toward establishing preferences for different types of white wines and makes the process of selecting a wine a lot less random.
Red wines have different characteristics. They tend to have more complex flavors and to be tannic to one degree or another, which is to say that they have a certain grainy texture that white wine lacks. While smooth is good, too smooth is not because wines that are made to be too smooth tend to loose the flavor of the grape from which they are made. Also wine without texture begins to resemble grape juice. Certain grape varieties are naturally less tannic like Grenache and Zinfandel so will be smoother whereas Cabernet Sauvignon is more tannic.
Winemakers control tannins in various ways, but two pervasive techniques can be major predictors of flavor, especially allowing the fruit to ripen to high sugar levels and aging the wine in oak barrels. Barrel aging is important because wood is porous, and the wine softens slightly from slow oxidation. Also during the aging period, tannins fall out of solution and remain in the barrel. For this reason, older wine is smoother than a current vintage, but older wine ages in the bottle. Instead current vintages age in barrels, and those barrels can add to the complex flavors of red wine. But when barrels have an exaggerated influence, they impart woody flavors that mask the character of the grape. When you know that all of the wine is aged in 100% new oak barrels over a longer period of time, you can expect that a lot of the taste will come from the wood.
The more grapes ripen on the vine, the less obtrusive tannins become. So once again, look for the alcohol content. Very ripe grapes can easily produce alcohol levels at 15 to 16% or more. Such a wine will be smooth, but it will taste less like the grape from which it is made and instead more raisiny because grapes that spend a lot of time on the vine dehydrate. A high alcohol wine can also impart a burning sensation. But if you’re very sensitive to tannin, you’ll want to choose either higher alcohol or grape varieties that are less tannic.
Knowing how long a red wine has been aged or how much of it has been subjected to new oak barrels is not information that you’ll find on a label. So you’ll have to go to the website and look for fact sheets. But in these pages, I almost always print that information. Many red wines are aged only in stainless steel tanks, so the wine will taste intensely like the grape from which it is made.
You can be mindful of these issues without being geeky, and just this amount of information will diminish disappointment when you shell out the substantial amount of money that premium wine demands. Also expect that your taste will change over time. Like other pleasures in life, what you enjoy now may well be different in five years.
Building a Reference Palate Through Contrast
The method described above works because memory needs an anchor. A single glass tells you whether you liked it; two glasses set side by side tell you why. Tasting an oaked and an unoaked white together, in the same session and at the same temperature, teaches more in ten minutes than a month of tasting one bottle at a time.
The comparison only holds when everything else is held steady. Different grapes, different regions, and different service temperatures each introduce a variable that muddies the lesson. Change one thing at a time and the difference that remains is the thing worth naming.
Steel and Barrel in the Same Glass
Two white wines from the same grape can be made along entirely different paths, and the vessel is only part of it. Malolactic conversion, lees contact, and fermentation temperature all pull in the same general direction, which is why the two styles feel so far apart.
| Trait | Stainless steel, no malolactic | Barrel-aged, full malolactic |
|---|---|---|
| Acid impression | Sharper and more cutting | Softer and rounder |
| Texture | Lean, quick finish | Broader, more weight mid-palate |
| Aroma emphasis | Citrus and orchard fruit | Vanilla, toast, and cream notes from wood |
| Oxygen exposure | Minimal during aging | Slow and continuous through the staves |
| Production cost | Lower, tanks are reusable indefinitely | Higher, barrels lose effect and are replaced |
Where Tannin Actually Comes From
Red wine tannin has two sources that behave differently. Grape tannin arrives from skins, seeds, and sometimes stems, and its quantity depends on the variety, the thickness of the skins, and how long the juice sat on them. Wood tannin arrives later from the barrel, and it tends to feel finer and drier than the grape kind.
That distinction explains an apparent contradiction in the text above. A wine can be low in grape tannin because the fruit was very ripe, yet still feel structured because new barrels supplied what the vineyard did not. Britannica’s overview of wine and winemaking traces how these techniques spread from region to region over the centuries.
FAQ: Naming What You Taste
Is a higher-alcohol wine always sweeter?
Not literally, though it often reads that way. Alcohol itself carries a faintly sweet impression and a warming sensation, so a drier wine at fifteen percent can taste rounder than a wine with measurable residual sugar at twelve. The perception comes from the alcohol, not from sugar left in the bottle.
How can anyone tell how long a wine spent in barrel?
Rarely from the front label, since that information is not required there. Producer fact sheets and technical notes are the usual place it appears, and archived notes in our newsletter archive often recorded it for the bottles being described at the time.
Do preferences really change over time?
They commonly do, and food is one reason. A style that seems overwhelming on its own can become the obvious choice beside a rich dish, which is why the food and wine pairing guide and the broader guide to California grapes and styles are worth revisiting as your palate shifts.