The Systematic Approach: The Palate
Written By: Dylan York on Thu, Jan 31st 2008
Once a wine reaches your palate your taste buds have the capacity to tell you everything you need to know about the wine. Using the systematic approach, you will be able to describe those flavors. Start with the level of sweetness and categorize it by dry, off-dry, medium-dry, medium-sweet, or sweet. Wines from warmer growing areas will have sweeter fruit and wines from cooler climates may be drier. An easy way to calculate this is to imagine a red Bordeaux for dry, Alsace Gewurztraminer for medium-dry, and a late harvest dessert wine for sweet. Most red wines will fall between dry and medium-dry, excluding port which can go up to medium-sweet. Be more concerned with judging sweetness in white wines since they can fall into every category.
Now look at the backbone of the wine which is the acidity and tannin. Rate the two separately as low, low-medium, medium, medium-high, or high. Acidity is higher for wines from cool climates and lower for warm climates. A great example of high acidity is German Riesling from Mosel-Saar-Ruwer. The climate is very cool and the grapes show steely acidity that promotes crisp and zesty fruit structure. Wines from warmer areas, such as the south of France, typically have lower acid levels. Tannins are typically higher in red wines built for age, for example, Malbec, Super Tuscans, Burgundy, Bordeaux and Bordeaux varietals. Note: Inexpensive wines typically have less tannin and higher acidity.
Next, describe how the wine "feels" on your palate; this is the body. Rate the body as light, light-medium, medium, medium-full, or full. Light bodied wines tend to be light in color as well and have little notes of oak. Fuller bodied wines are rich, robust and exhibit oak flavors.
At this point combine everything thus far and measure the intensity. Ask yourself "Are all these components making an impression on me?" Then rate the intensity as light, medium or pronounced.
Finally we arrive at the flavor characteristics. Just like the aromas, try and pick out flavors of fruits, floral, spice, vegetal, nut, oak and other. Don't think to hard and second guess yourself, use your instincts. Wine is flavored from the earth, so anything that is organic can show up in the palate. At first keep it simple, pick out a fruit, non-fruit, earth and other aroma, then later expand your descriptors. Also keep in mind the flavors that the wine finishes with. Note any differences between the mid-palate flavors and the flavors on the finish. Then conclude with the most important part, whether you like it or not.
Wrapping up our description of our 2006 Australian Shiraz we would conclude with the following: The wine is clear with an opaque purple color, no rim variation and is highly viscous. The nose is clean, pronounced and youthful with aromas of white pepper, blueberries and spice. The palate is fruity with medium-dry sweetness and the acidity and tannins are medium. The wine has medium intensity and exhibits medium-full bodied characteristics of blackberries, plums, savory black liquorices and spice. The wine finishes strong with notes of toasty blackberry and cardamom. Conclusion, it's a bottle of 2006 Torbreck Woodcutters Shiraz, and I love it.
