wein.plus
Attention
You are using an old browser that may not function as expected.
For a better, safer browsing experience, please upgrade your browser.

Log in Become a Member

Wine description

See under Wine Speech.

Even in ancient times, wine tasters had a language for describing wine quality. Around one hundred terms have been found in Greek literature. However, there was no generally accepted vocabulary; instead, an assessment was left to the imagination or judgement of the individual. It was not until the beginning of the 18th century that a culture in this regard slowly began to develop in wine community. The French chemist Jean-Antoine Claude Chaptal (1756-1832) already used more than 60 expressions in his work "Art de faire, de gouverner, et de perfectionner les vins", published in 1807. In his studies on the history of Médoc wines, Professor René Pijassou (1922-2007) from the University of Bordeaux collected all the expressions used at the time by brokers and vineyard owners (e.g. inexpressive, flat, full-bodied, full-bodied, aftertaste, robust, round, velvety) and had already established tasting rules.

Beginning of professional evaluations

In the book "Topographie de tous les vignobles connus" by the wine merchant André Jullien (1766-1832), there is a list of around 70 technical terms to describe the qualities, defects and illnesses of wines. The term tannin and descriptive attributes such as astringent, balsamic, linear, nervy, tingling, silky, solid and dry appear in it for the first time. In the "Dictionaire-Manuel du négoicant en vins et spiritueux et du maître de chai" by Édouard Féret from 1896, there were already 180 terms. The Scottish physician Dr Alexander Henderson (1780-1863) is considered to be one of the first wine writers to endeavour to create a general nomenclature that could also be understood by laypeople. The book "Weine prüfen, kennen und genießen" (Wine Tasting) by English author Michael Broadbent (1927-2020) is considered the standard work and has been reprinted time and again since 1960. Today, there are around a thousand different terms in use.

Bekannte Weinkritiker: É. Peynaud, R. Parker, J. Robinson, M. Broadbent, H. Johnson

The type of wine description or the vocabulary used also depends on the reason for tasting. The famous wine taster Émile Peynaud (1912-2004) described this in his book "Die hohe Schule für Wein-Kenner" (The high school for wine connoisseurs) as follows: "The chemist looks above all for the analytical error, the law enforcement officer for the infringement of the law, the oenologist for the ageing error, the winegrower for the character and the merchant for what the market is looking for". In a professional wine evaluation, wine is tasted according to established rules, i.e. its quality and characteristics are analysed to the best of our knowledge and belief. This is done in verbal and/or written form according to set rules, or also a grading in the form of a points system. The formulated evaluation is known as a "wine speech", which clearly and comprehensibly reflects all subjective and, above all, objective and comprehensible impressions regarding colour, smell, taste and overall impression.

Categorisation into descriptive groups

The descriptive adjectives used in wine evaluation or wine description can be categorised into three groups. The first group of hedonistic terms such as the positively connoted incomparable, fantastic, fabulous, unique, delicious and marvellous are often used in brochures, but are objectively useless because they can mean everything and nothing. However, this does not mean that a hedonistic judgement - especially in the private sphere - is not justified, even if it is only in the short form "tastes good" or "doesn't taste good". However, this is of course unsuitable as helpful information for a consumption or purchase decision. Incidentally, wines in the Swiss canton of Vaud are labelled with the Terravin seal "Lauriers de Platine Terravin" according to hedonistic criteria. However, the wines in question have already been selected as top wines according to objective sensory criteria.

The second group, such as floral, fruity and fresh, is far more suitable, but is also relatively imprecise and vague and leaves too many possible interpretations open. For example, "fresh" can refer to a high acidity (tartaric acid), to the fresh sparkling carbon dioxide or even to the temperature of the wine (cellar-fresh). These terms are therefore only understandable or unambiguous in the context of the description. Only the third group of exact terms of an analytical nature, such as aromas/tones of green grass, roses, nutmeg, tobacco and vanilla, as well as astringent, acidic and long finish, are also objectively comprehensible because they are known and verifiable by everyone. They are recognised by experts as synonymous terminology and are generally valid. The flavour wheel developed at the University of California by the chemist Ann C. Noble is very helpful for both amateurs and professionals.

Nomenclature

However, there is no internationally recognised nomenclature with clearly defined terms. The reason for this is that terms in a particular language often have a positive or negative connotation. Terms with a positive connotation in one language can have a negative connotation in another language and vice versa. The vocabulary of professional tasters varies considerably. Terms with the same or similar meanings illustrate the difficulty of standardisation. One example is bulky, which can also mean broad-shouldered, powerful, muscular or full-bodied. So if there are already many similarities within a language, standardisation is almost impossible for different languages.

When evaluating wines, any defects are also identified; these terms are not included in the list below, but are listed under wine defects....

Voices of our members

Roman Horvath MW

wein.plus is a handy, efficient guide to a quick overview of the colourful world of wines, winegrowers and grape varieties. In Wine lexicon, the most comprehensive of its kind in the world, you will find around 26,000 keywords on the subject of grape varieties, wineries, wine-growing regions and much more.

Roman Horvath MW
Domäne Wachau (Wachau)

The world's largest Lexicon of wine terms.

26,379 Keywords · 46,983 Synonyms · 5,323 Translations · 31,713 Pronunciations · 202,093 Cross-references
made with by our author Norbert F. J. Tischelmayer. About the Lexicon

EVENTS NEAR YOU

PREMIUM PARTNERS