Those are kind of the four points of wine taste. Heavy vs light means how much flavor is going to hit you when you drink it. Think Dr. Pepper vs Fresca. Fruity wines tend to be sweeter and have discernible fruit flavors like cherry, strawberry, grape, etc. Earthy means it’s flavors like oak, coffee, chocolate, and well, dirt. Cabernet Franc, not listed here, tastes like it has clay in it. (I’m not an fan). Does that help?
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· 4 years ago
So they do add other flavors besides grape. The chart had me super confused!
They don’t add the flavors. During the fermentation process the sugars and tannins and whatnot mature into a complex flavor that has a lot of different aspects.
Grapes taste differently, so it stands to reason that wines taste differently. The difference between red, white, and rose wine is purely down to production method. But even beyond that, production methods also add taste notes, and some are very strong, like with retsina.
It’s like when you eat something and you think it tastes like [chicken]. The wines don’t actually have chocolate or citrus or cherry in them, but they have flavors/scents that are similar.
Personally, I’m a fan of the heavy tannic wines. I like the deep dark bold flavors. Though I can’t abide a Syrah/Shiraz.
think about how taste buds actually work. specific taste buds are activated and that gives a specific "flavor". The different biomolecules in wine activate different taste buds and some of those patterns can mimic other "flavor". The same thing is done with candy that tastes like fruit; it's not actually fruit, it just activates nearly the similar taste buds, so it tastes pretty close.
Personally, I’m a fan of the heavy tannic wines. I like the deep dark bold flavors. Though I can’t abide a Syrah/Shiraz.
You get me?