When you order wine from the Wall Street Journal at the WSJWine site, they include this presumably handy chart for helping you describe the wines you just ordered.While I enjoy trying to describe the taste and essence of wines that I sample, this feel like an overly contrived way to think of the process. One should be able to think through classifications of wine tastes more spontaneously than this "tool" prescribes; do you really need help in recognizing that if a wine tastes citrusy, possible descriptions to use include orange, lemon, lime, etc.?
Here is hoping you never have to taste a wine that features these flavors:
- Anything in the "chemical" category (of course, this implies the wine has been sullied)
- Concrete or dust (especially if it triggers allergies)
- Botrytis (I don't even know what that is, but my spidey senses tell me that anything that sounds like a disease is a bad profile for wine)
- I'm not sold on the metals either, especially copper (just sounds too abrasive)
- Certain of the "animal" flavors. OK, all of the "animal" flavors, but especially "horsey" or "wet dog". Wait, "sweaty saddle" takes the cake (and, who exactly first discovered what that tastes like?)
- Licorice (maybe that's just me, but I hate the stuff)
- Bubblegum - really? There is wine that tastes like bubblegum? Is this Bazooka-branded wine?
- Grapefruit - again, probably just me, but if I want grapefruit, I'll drink grapefruit juice. Or Mountain Dew.
- Pencil-Shavings - this of course comes from wines that are aged in barrels made of pencil wood (note - if pencil shavings is in the "resin" category, why is "lead" not in the metals?)
- Ash or tobacco smoke. I can live with burnt toast or bonfire though, especially if I have marshmallows to enjoy with the latter
- Hay or straw. Don't get me wrong, I love a grassy Sauvignon Blanc as much as the next girly-man, but let your farmyard critters keep their feed.
Bottoms up, hope you enjoy a good wine this weekend.
