What Does Wine Taste Like? An Honest Beginner's Guide

Wine tastes much less sweet than grape juice: most wine is dry, with a gentle sourness from acidity, a warming feel from alcohol and, in reds, a drying grip from tannin. The fruit flavours people describe, such as cherry, lemon or blackcurrant, come from the grapes and from fermentation, not from any added fruit.

That is why a first sip often surprises people, and why it can seem sour or bitter rather than fruity. Below you will find how each main style tastes, a quick chart to compare them, and simple ways to find a first bottle you will actually enjoy.

Does wine taste like grape juice?

No. Wine starts as grape juice, but during fermentation yeast eats the sugar and turns it into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Shop grape juice has roughly 150 g of sugar per litre, while a wine labelled dry has at most 4 g/L (up to 9 g/L with high acidity), so nearly all that sweetness is gone. The wine sweetness chart shows every level in between.

Once the sugar has gone, four things stand out that juice does not have:

• Dryness: little or no sugar, so the wine is not sweet even when it smells fruity.
• Acidity: a sour, mouth-watering freshness, like a squeeze of lemon. All wine has it, and whites usually show it most.
• Alcohol: usually around 11 to 15 percent in still wine, felt as warmth in the throat and a little weight on the tongue.
• Tannin: a drying, slightly rough feel on your gums, like strong black tea. It comes from grape skins, seeds and oak, so it is mainly found in reds. See what are tannins in wine.

Why does wine taste like other fruits?

Nobody adds cherries to red wine or passion fruit to Sauvignon Blanc. Grapes and yeast create hundreds of aroma compounds, and many are the same molecules found in other fruits, spices and flowers. Your nose recognises the molecule and your brain names the nearest familiar thing.

• Sauvignon Blanc can contain thiols, the same family of compounds that gives passion fruit and grapefruit much of their smell, and pyrazines, which also give green peppers theirs.
• Syrah can contain rotundone, the compound behind the smell of black pepper.
• Fermentation creates esters, fruity compounds that can smell of banana, pear drops or red berries.
• Oak barrels add vanillin, the main flavour compound in vanilla, along with toasty and spicy notes.

Most of what we call taste is really smell. Your tongue picks up only sweet, sour, bitter, salty and savoury; the cherry and lemon arrive through your nose. Naming them is a skill you can practise, and how to taste wine shows you how.

What do different wines taste like? A quick chart

Use this as a starting map: the flavours and textures each style usually shows.

What does red wine taste like?

Red wine tastes of red and black fruit, often with savoury, spicy or earthy notes, and it has tannin, the drying feel most whites lack. Its colour and tannin come from dark grape skins soaking in the juice during fermentation. How it tastes depends mostly on how light or full it is.

Light reds such as Pinot Noir and Gamay (the grape of Beaujolais) taste of cherry, raspberry and cranberry, sometimes with a hint of mushroom. They feel silky and fresh, with little tannin, and are the easiest reds to start with. Serve them slightly cool, at 12–14°C.

Full-bodied reds such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Malbec taste of blackcurrant, blackberry, plum and pepper, often with vanilla, toast or cocoa from oak. They feel heavier and warmer, with firm tannin that dries your mouth. Serve them at 15–18°C; much warmer and the alcohol tastes hot. Medium reds such as Merlot sit in between.

What do white, rosé and orange wine taste like?

White wine is made from juice pressed off the skins, so it has almost no tannin. Most whites taste fresher and lighter than reds, with flavours of citrus, apple, pear and stone fruit, and the main split is crisp versus rich.

Crisp whites such as Pinot Grigio taste of lemon, green apple and pear, light and clean with zesty acidity. Rich whites such as oaked Chardonnay taste of ripe peach, pineapple and baked apple, with butter, vanilla and toast from oak barrels and from malolactic conversion, a process that turns sharp malic acid into softer lactic acid. Unoaked Chardonnay, such as Chablis, is leaner and tastes of green apple and lemon.

Rosé is usually made from red grapes with only a short time on the skins, often a few hours, so it turns pink but gets little tannin. A dry Provence rosé tastes of strawberry, watermelon, peach and citrus. Sweeter pinks such as White Zinfandel taste of candied strawberry.

Orange wine is white wine made like a red: the juice ferments with the white grape skins for days, weeks or even months. That gives it an amber colour, some tannin and flavours of dried apricot, orange peel, black tea and nuts, often with a slightly sour, cider-like tang. It is dry and grippy, closer to a light red than a white. In Georgia, where the method goes back thousands of years, it is called amber wine.

What does Champagne taste like?

Champagne usually tastes of lemon, green apple and white peach, with notes of brioche, toast or biscuit. Those bready flavours come from its second fermentation in the bottle and from ageing on the lees (spent yeast); non-vintage Champagne must age at least 15 months before release. Most Champagne is Brut, with under 12 g/L of sugar, so it tastes dry and crisp.

The bubbles change the taste as well as the feel. Dissolved carbon dioxide forms a little carbonic acid, so a sparkling wine feels sharper and fresher than a still one, and the fizz carries aromas up out of the glass.

Prosecco tastes softer and fruitier: pear, green apple, melon and white flowers, with frothier, lighter bubbles. It gets its fizz in large tanks rather than in each bottle, so it has few toasty notes, and many bottles are labelled Extra Dry, which oddly means 12–17 g/L of sugar and a gently sweet finish.

What do sweet wines and Port taste like?

Sweet wines keep natural grape sugar, but good ones are not sickly because high acidity balances the sugar. Sauternes, made from grapes shrivelled by noble rot (a helpful mould that concentrates sugar), tastes of honey, apricot and marmalade. Serve sweet wines chilled, at 6–10°C.

Port is a fortified wine from Portugal's Douro Valley. Grape spirit is added partway through fermentation, which stops the yeast, so the wine stays sweet and strong at around 19–22 percent alcohol. Ruby Port tastes of blackberry, plum, cherry and chocolate. Tawny Port, aged longer in wooden casks, turns amber-brown and tastes of caramel, walnut, dried fig and orange peel.

Why does wine taste bitter or sour at first?

It is normal for your first glasses to taste sour, bitter or harsh. Sourness is acidity: most wines sit at roughly pH 3 to 4, about as acidic as orange juice, but without the sugar that hides it in juice. Bitterness and roughness usually come from tannin and the heat of alcohol, and some people are naturally more sensitive to bitter tastes than others.

Taste changes with practice. Like coffee or dark chocolate, wine often becomes enjoyable once you know what to expect. Food helps too: salty, fatty and protein-rich food makes tannic reds feel smoother, while sweet food makes dry wine taste more sour and bitter, so pair desserts with a wine that is at least as sweet.

To find a first wine you will like, start fruity and a little sweet, then work towards drier styles:

• Moscato d'Asti, or a German Riesling Kabinett, for gentle sweetness and lower alcohol.
• Prosecco or a fruity rosé for something fresh and easy.
• A light, juicy red such as Beaujolais or Pinot Noir when you are ready for red.

Our list of sweet wines for beginners and the wider wine for beginners guide give more ideas, and understanding your wine taste profile helps you turn what you like into what to try next. Wine is for adults of legal drinking age and is best enjoyed in moderation.