Wine Lessons: How To Differentiate Good From Bad Wine (Part 1/3)

LESSON #2: How To Tell Good From Bad Wine (Part 1/3)

LIKE they say in action movies, we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way. Let's start with "easy" and take it from there, shall we?

Out of the many dozens of things we consider when judging a wine, for our purpose, all you have to do is to focus on just six tasting points, namely:

1. Concentration
2. Structure
3. Bouquet
4. Typicity
5. Balance
6. Finish

Concentration

Concentration is about a feeling of density and not a "taste" of flavors per se. A wine can have the loveliest of fruit and spice flavors but if there's not enough of it in every sip, it lacks concentration.

Don't let the "hot" feeling of alcohol fool you into thinking that the wine is concentrated. Alcohol only gives weight - through a sense of heat on the palate - not concentration to a wine.

Also, avoid being fooled by the sweet fruitiness that distracts you from how dense or diluted the wine really is. You can dilute orange juice with sugar water. It may still taste sweet but it lost some of its concentrated orange flavors.

Concentration is a result of a combination of weather and expert wine-making. Ripe grapes slightly starved for water reduces the liquid in the grape and concentrates its flavors.

In the winery, extra measures are taken to extract more (phenolics) out of the grape and its juice before, during and even after fermentation.

Good wine must have good concentration although it is perfectly normal for older wines (20 years or more) to lose some of its concentration. As wines mature with age, elegance replaces intensity, an equitable trade perhaps.

Click here to read Part 2

Source: How To Differentiate Good From Bad Wine