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How to Identify Balance in Wines

Contributor
By Aaron R.
eHow Contributing Writer
(0 Ratings)

I recent years interest in wine has grown as people have moved to broaden their drinking horizons. Learning a bit about characteristics of wine can help you discuss wine in conversation, and balance is characteristic is relatively simple to understand.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Instructions

Things You'll Need:

  • Couple of wines for comparison
  • Glass for each wine
  • Bottle of water
  1. Step 1

    Understand that balance in wine refers to the pairing of two or more aspects of the wine in relation to each other and is usually used to refer to the relationship between sweetness and acidity.

  2. Step 2

    Taste a few wines. Realize first trying to identify balance in wine that not all wines will have sugar in them left over from the fermenting process and in that case the balance will be between the acidity and the alcohol and tannins (chemicals that give an oaky flavor to the wine). This is more relevant in the cases of red wines.

  3. Step 3

    Continue to taste wines, realize that wine that is more acidic can support more sugar, a wine with too much sugar for its acidity will often feel flabby in the mouth while a wine that is too acidic for its sugar content often have a taste which is sharp and harsh on the tongue.

  4. Step 4

    Keep tasting wines. But keep the amount you are tasting small. Unlike the relationship between acidity and sugar content the relationship between tannins and acidity is inversely porportional. Less tannin allow for more acid and vice versa.

  5. Step 5

    Take a break for a bit. When you continue try to see how alcohol content and acid content go hand in hand a higher alcohol content allows for higher acidity and too acidic of a wine will taste harsh while too alcoholic of a wine will taste very heavy and soft.

Tips & Warnings
  • Keep your portions for tasting small. Overindulgence in wine at social gatherings for the purpose of wine enjoyment can lead to embarrassment or worse.
  • Never drink and drive or operate heavy machinery.
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