Wines Guide for Dummies

A wide variety of multinational festivals and holidays are celebrated around the world in December and January. Wines will play an important part in this holiday season. If you’re looking for knowledge of choosing wines, here are two tips for beginner.

Wine Label- Easiest Way to know the taste of wines

Wine labels include the information of producer, vintage, region, appellation and ABV. When choosing wines, ABV (Alcohol by Volume)works a lot for the taste. Wines usually has an alcohol content of 8% to 15%. When ABV below 11% or above 17%, the wines will be sweet. When talking about the wines with ABV below 13%, the words to describe them are crispy and light bodied. For those ABV between 13% to 13.5%, most of them are medium-bodied and wines alcohol content above 13.5% and below 15% means full bodied, little acidity and comes with tears.

Despite what you may have heard, wine tears are not an indication of quality of the wine. It can only tell you the alcohol level in wine. High alcohol wines will collect higher density of droplets and then the tears phenomenon comes out. Although alcohol in wines primarily comes from the grape, when grape get mature too quickly, it may still taste bad.

Wine label tells the basic taste of the wine, but if you wan to choose a satisfied wine, reading wine reviews is necessary.

Wine Review-Most important part to know wine

After reading wine label, you may have first pick of your wine. The second part is to read reviews.

In general, from wine reviews, there is a rule. For aroma, the more in details, the wider in range, the better wine is. Also, For body, the extreme words it describes, the better wine is and vice versa.

For example, there are two wine reviews below:

First, it effuses fresh dark fruit aromas accentuated by subtler notes of forest-floor and graphite. The wine's round mouthfeel and satiny tannins wrap around classic flavors of cassis,blackberry and black cherry. This refined and age-worthy wine simultaneously offers a long lingering finish, with lively acidity and a sturdy structure at the close. Opus one 2012 $200

Second, This is a solid, jammy red that offers forward notes of black plum, cherry and berry. The medium-weight mouthfeel is direct and attractive, as the juicy black-fruit flavors are complemented by moderate tannins and balanced alcohol. A well-done and immediately accessible selection to enjoy now.

Finishing reading these two paragraph, you may still confused what is the differences between these two wine, but when compare with the rule, it works.

For first wine, the first nose of aroma can describe as forest-floor, graphite and second nose with blackberry and black cherry. It has wider range of aromas, expect for fruit smell, it also comes with graphite and forest-floor. Also, the aromas is described in detail with actual things such as black cherry and blackberry. For second wine, the aromas is black plum, cherry and berry. When drinking, you can fell juicy black-fruit. It has less aroma range, just in fruit category. Also, it does not write in detail of what black-fruit is.

Then, in description of wine structure , you have to know two words,which are body and tannin. Wine body refers to fullness or overall fell of a wine in your mouth. Tannin feels like the astringent when you eat the grape.

For first wine, it has round mouthfeel and satiny tannis warp and offers a long lingering finish. This description totally tells us this is a good wine and can be aged wine. But for second wine, it says the medium-weight mouthfell is direct, attractive and moderate tannis and balanced alcohol, no extreme words to tell us this is a good wine. The first wine is Opus one 2012, the price is $200. The second wine is David Frost 2014 with price $12.

In addition, if a wine review focus on fresh, aperitif, fruity, elegant, classic and early drinking, it has to not be a good wine.

Now you get the tips of choosing a wine, try to choose a gift for your family.