A Beginner's Guide to Common Wine Descriptions, Part 1

If your eyes glaze over at lengthy wine descriptions that seem to require a Master Sommelier to interpret, you’re not alone.The terms industry pros rely can sometimes leave the casual enthusiast wondering just what it is they are trying to communicate.

We’ve compiled a list of some of the most common (and complex) wine terms and broken them down so even beginners can understand.

So the next time you read that wine boasts “lofty white floral aromas and fragrant minerality on the nose; while on the palate the wine is plush and full-bodied, superbly fruit-forward with generous mixed red berry fruit, mineral and earth tones, integrated sweet oak spice, augmented by sagebrush undertones with gritty tannins, zippy acid and a persistent finish,” you’ll know just what to make of it.

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On the Nose / On the Palate

“On the nose” is a fancy way of saying “the wine smells like” and “on the palate” is a less-definitive version “the wine tastes like.” “On the palate” also leaves the door open to talk about how a wine feels, since the sensation of a wine is just as important as the flavors it evokes.

Aromatic / Aromas

Without smell, there is no taste, so it comes up often in wine. Aroma is a common term for the smells that waft out of a glass as you swirl it. Some wines are more aromatic than others. You might be able to smell a powerful Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon a few inches away, but to smell the aromas from Chardonnay you’ll likely have to stick your nose all the way in the glass.

Floral / Perfumed

Floral and perfumed aromas are found in both red and white wines, and they are just what they sound like. Viognier is a classic example of a wine with white floral aromas—typically honeysuckle. Pinot Noir and well-crafted Bordeaux blends often have perfumes hinting at dried flowers, like roses and violets. Gewürztraminer is often considered a truly “perfumed” wine because of its exotic scents. Sniff on!

Ripe

Ripeness refers to the intensity of the fruit flavor (more about that in a minute). Underripe is used for less rich fruit notes—think the green tartness of a young apple. Ripe (or even overripe) fruit aromas and flavors will be concentrated, bold, and unmistakable, like summer plums or blackberries.

Fruity / Fruit-Forward

If a wine is described as “fruity,” or “fruit-forward”, it means those qualities are what you’ll notice first. And though no fruit is actually added to any wine—beyond grapes—it’s true that various fruit aromas and flavors are detectable. Try this: pop open a bottle of red wine and give a glass to a friend and ask if they smell “red cherries,” and nine times of out ten, they’ll say the do. Mission accomplished. Now to those fruits:

• Citrus Fruit
  
  • Lemons, limes, grapefruits, and oranges, mostly. It’s often an indicator that the wine is from a cooler-climate. Grapes there don’t ripen as fully as in warmer climates, and therefore they tend to show these cleaner, leaner, dare we say refreshing citrus notes.
  • What qualifies a stone fruit? Think apricots, peaches, and plums. Even if you can’t pinpoint the exact variety you’re tasting, you’ll likely notice this juicy note in richer whites and rosé wines.
  • Not to be confused with wine that tastes underripe, but rather aromas and flavors of green apple, pear, and gooseberry. These grapes are usually grown in cooler regions, like Chardonnay from Chablis in France. Chardonnay from warmer winegrowing regions, like California, might show more tropical fruit.
  • You know these from your vacations on the Big Island or the Bahamas. White grapes grown in hotter limates (regions like the warmest areas of California, Chile, Argentina, Italy, and Australia), tend to produce tropical fruit notes like pineapple, papaya, and passion fruit.
  • If a wine is described as having a red fruit flavors and aromas that means, apart from the grapes, there is a strong sense of red berry flavors, most often strawberries, cherries, raspberries and pomegranate.
  • Simply enough, most black fruit actually has the word “black” in the name—blackberry, black cherry, and blackcurrant. Wines with a concentrated richness like Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Malbec all have black fruit aromas and flavors whereas wines with a lighter style (think old world Pinot Noir) lean toward red fruit characteristics.

  Herbaceous

  Fruit aromas are they only ones you’ll find in wine. Herbaceous refers to green notes like bell peppers, asparagus, freshly cut grass, or herbs like rosemary, sage and thyme. Two classic examples are Loire Valley Cabernet Franc, which has aromas of green pepper, and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, with its aromatic jalapeño and grassy character.

  Earthy / Mushroomy

  There’s no dirt or mushrooms in your wine, we promise. But these secondary aromas can exist alongside other notes. They can result from the winemaking process or because of the wine’s terroir (Learn more about terroir here.), and they can be an indicator of age. These might be aromas of dirt, the forest floor, various mushrooms or truffles.

  Check back soon for Part 2, when we'll break down wine descriptive word mysteries like "salty", "racy", and "finesse".