Why wine doesn’t taste like boozy grape juice

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, October 7, 2006

In a column on New Zealand pinot noirs, I used terms such as “spice,” “berry,” “plum” and so on to describe the flavors. I’ve been asked: Are these flavors added to the wine, or are such flavors unique to each variety of grape? And what exactly are varietal wines?

My descriptions are an attempt to capture in mere words the wondrous flavors in wine. Though complex and incredibly variable, these flavors come only from grapes. Nothing is added.

Grapes are the great chameleons of the fruit world. When made into wine, they have an uncanny ability to assume the flavors and aromas of other fruits, as well as notes of non-fruits, such as herbs and spices, depending on the variety.

No other fruit I know of can do that. You don’t need much of a vocabulary to describe wines made from elderberries, blackberries and apples. They taste like elderberry, blackberry and apple. Not unpleasant, certainly, but hardly what inspired Robert Louis Stevenson to describe wine as “bottled poetry.”

Ultimately, what separates Boone’s Farm from Lafite Rothschild is something out of the ordinary. Beyond the mere conversion of fruit sugar into alcohol, fermentation unlocks some hidden flavor potential in grapes that no other fruit can match.

So instead of tasting like a boozy version of Welch’s grape juice, a newly minted chardonnay enters the world with flavors of apple, peach, honeysuckle, acacia and smoke. Cabernet sauvignon exhibits flavors that barely taste like grape, such as cedar, tobacco and Provencal herbs. Pinot noirs, such as those from New Zealand I wrote about, really do have flavors of plum, spice and crushed red berries.

Varietal wines are those made from a single grape variety; e.g., pinot noir. They capitalize on the distinctive flavor profiles of that grape. When you buy a pinot noir, it should taste recognizably like other good pinot noirs, regardless of the producer. Because each grape variety has a distinctive personality, varietal labeling can be very helpful.

But varietal flavors are just the beginning. A truly remarkable thing about grapes is the old saying about location, location, location. A cabernet sauvignon from Pauillac, Bordeaux, tastes quite different from the exact same variety grown in California’s Napa Valley, or in Bolgheri, Tuscany. No one can really explain why that should be so, but the French have come up with a name for it: terroir, the term for the connection between where a wine is grown and what is called.

The art of the winemaker also has a role in this. While the best winemakers are non-interventionist, the skillful use of oak aging, yeast strains, high or low temperature fermentation and other techniques can help express and complement the best that the grape has to offer.

Although describing the myriad flavor distinctions among wines can be a challenge, I prefer words over simplistic point scores. By using words, I hope to encourage you to experience these wonderful flavor sensations for yourself.