How to Describe a Wine's Flavor

"Describing a wine's flavor is sometimes difficult for people. It doesn't make much sense to me, because we all grew up describing food. Maybe we've gotten a little too lackadaisical; maybe the ways we describe food is like yuk, yum, delicious, give me more of that. We can definitely describe wine flavor like yuk, yum, delicious, or give me more of that, but usually we describe a wine's flavor in terms of it's major aromas. For instance, we might say that it's fruity, or floral, or spicy, or earthy. If a wine tastes the way that it smells, we have an interesting saying that we use. We say that the wine's aromas are mirrored on the palate as flavors. This can sound fairly impressive. It works like this; we pick up a glass of wine, we swirl it, we say mmm, blackberry and blueberry; very nice fruity aromas Then we can take a taste and say mm, blackberry and blueberry aromas are mirrored on the palate as flavors. It's kind of interesting when a wine tastes the way it smells, and it might be what you expect, but sometimes a wine tastes totally different than it smells; in which case, we have to come up with new terms. We can describe the terms just as they are; like fruity, or floral, or spicy, but sometimes we have to get a little bit more creative. Thus might be some of the times that you hear interesting wine descriptors like complex; meaning there's a lot going on, or jammy; meaning very big and kind of concentrated, or we can say precise; meaning it cuts like a paper cut. So if you ever hear some of those interesting wine descriptors, and you're not quite sure what it is; I'll tell you what it is. Someone is trying to describe a flavor, and they're getting a little creative at doing it. It can be a lot of fun, and you should try it."