How to Describe a Wine's Body

Video Transcript

"One of the beautiful things about wine is its diversity. It can have all kinds of different aromas and flavors, and it can have different mouth feel, also. The way we describe a wine's mouth feel is to say texture or body. This is actually different than aroma, or taste, or a flavor, because it actually is a tactile sensation. The way that you want to talk about a wine's body is to put a little bit in your mouth, and just let it sit in the middle of your tongue. Feel the wine's weight. If it's a little bit heavier than water, it's going to be medium-bodied, at least. If it's very heavy, and kind of feels like milk, it 's probably very heavy, or robust, or rich, or powerful. If it is that nice and watery, it's going to be light. We can talk about wine in terms of its weight; in terms of light, medium, or heavy. If a wine is light we'll probably refer to it as elegant, or subtle, or refreshing. If it's medium-bodied we can call it velvety, or supple, or just moderate. If it's full bodied we can get kind of crazy and call it powerful or masculine, robust, rich, meaty; but all we're really saying is it's full-bodied and mouth filling. So when you talk about a wine's body, you're talking about its texture, and its weight in the mouth, and it should be in balance with the other elements of the wine's flavor. "