Words to Describe Wine: A Practical Tasting Vocabulary

The most useful words to describe wine fall into a handful of groups: how it looks, what it smells of, how sweet, sharp, grippy, warm and heavy it feels, what its texture is like and how long the flavour lingers. Plain words work best, so lemon, cherry, crisp, soft or grippy are exactly what professional tasters use.

Below, the vocabulary follows the order of a tasting, from the first look to the last sip. It ends with a fill-in template for tasting notes, two worked examples and the words that cause more confusion than they solve.

How to describe wine: start with how it looks

Every tasting starts with a look, and a few words are enough here. A deep colour often hints at a riper, fuller wine, and a brownish tinge can mean age.

Describe two things. First the colour: whites run from lemon-green through lemon and gold to amber, rosés from pale pink to salmon and orange, and reds from purple through ruby to garnet and tawny. Then the depth: pale, medium or deep.

With age, whites tend to deepen towards gold and amber, while reds tend to lose their purple and fade towards garnet and brick at the rim.

The rest of this page follows the order taught in how to taste wine: look, smell, taste, conclude. Whenever a word is new to you, the A–Z wine glossary has a plain-English definition.

Wine descriptors for aroma and flavour

Most of the vocabulary describes smell, and the same words cover flavour, because much of what we call taste is really smell. Go from broad to narrow: first decide which family a smell belongs to, then pin it down.

Start with fruit, because almost every wine has some. For whites, ask whether the fruit is citrus, green, stone or tropical. For reds, ask whether it is red, black or dried.

A few aromas are closely linked to particular grapes, which makes them handy anchors. Cut grass and gooseberry are classic in Sauvignon Blanc, rose and lychee in Gewürztraminer, black pepper in cool-climate Syrah, and red cherry and raspberry in Pinot Noir. Green, leafy smells are called herbaceous.

If you get stuck, an aroma wheel helps. The best known, the Wine Aroma Wheel, was developed by Ann C. Noble at the University of California, Davis, in the 1980s. It puts broad families such as fruity, floral and spicy at the centre and moves out to specific words like blackcurrant or violet at the rim.

Wine tasting terms for oak and age

Tasters often sort aromas by where they come from. Primary aromas come from the grape and fermentation: the fruit, flowers and herbs above. Secondary aromas come from winemaking, and tertiary aromas develop with age. The smells that come with age are traditionally called the bouquet.

Oak words. Barrels can add vanilla, toast, smoke, cedar, clove, coffee and chocolate. Coconut and dill are often linked to American oak, while French oak is usually described as subtler and spicier. French vs American oak explains the difference.

Other winemaking words. Buttery usually comes from malolactic conversion, a step in which bacteria turn sharp malic acid into softer lactic acid. So a rich, oaked Chardonnay can smell of butter as well as toast. Bread and biscuit notes come from time on the lees, the spent yeast left after fermentation.

Age words. With years in bottle, fresh fruit softens towards dried fruit and new smells appear. In whites, look for honey, nuts, toast, dried apricot and, in aged Riesling, a note tasters call petrol. In reds, look for leather, tobacco, mushroom, forest floor and game.

Wine tasting terms for structure: sweetness, acidity, tannin, alcohol and body

Structure words describe how a wine is built rather than what it smells of. Each sits on a scale from low to high, and placing a wine on that scale beats any fancy adjective.

Sweetness also has legal meaning on labels. In the EU, a still wine counts as dry with up to 4 grams of sugar per litre, or up to 9 g/L when its acidity is high; the wine sweetness chart covers the full range. Tannin, the drying grip on your gums, is explained in what are tannins in wine, and typical strengths by style are in wine alcohol content.

The milk comparison for body is worth remembering. Alcohol and sugar both add weight, so high-alcohol wines tend to feel fuller.

Words for texture and finish

Texture, or mouthfeel, is how a wine feels rather than how it tastes. In reds it mostly comes down to tannin; in whites, to acidity, sugar, alcohol and sometimes time on the lees.

• Silky: fine, smooth tannins that glide across the tongue, common in lighter reds.
• Velvety: a little thicker and plusher than silky, with soft but noticeable tannin.
• Round: soft edges, with no sharp acidity or harsh tannin sticking out.
• Grippy: tannin you clearly feel on your gums and cheeks; firm and chewy are close cousins.
• Crisp: fresh, bright acidity, used mostly for whites, rosés and sparkling wines.
• Creamy: soft and rich, often from lees contact or, in sparkling wine, a fine, gentle foam of bubbles.
• Hot: a burning feeling from alcohol that is out of balance with the rest of the wine.

The finish is the flavour left after you swallow or spit. As a rough guide, a short finish fades within a few seconds and a long one lingers for ten seconds or more, often taken as a sign of quality.

Words for quality: balanced, complex, simple

Once you have described the parts, judge the whole. These words are about how well the parts fit together, not whether you personally like the wine.

• Balanced: no single element, such as acidity, tannin, alcohol or sweetness, sticks out. See balance.
• Harmonious: balanced and seamless, with flavour and structure moving together.
• Complex: many layers of aroma and flavour that keep changing in the glass.
• Simple: one or two clear notes. This is not an insult, as plenty of good everyday wines are simple and delicious.
• Typical: tastes the way that grape or region is expected to, which tasters call typicity.
• Flabby, thin or hollow: too little acidity, too little flavour, or a gap in the middle of the palate.

Professionals often weigh four things together: balance, length, intensity and complexity. A wine that does well on all four is usually very good.

How to write wine tasting notes: a simple template

A tasting note does not need to be long. Three to five lines in the same order every time teach you faster than one inspired paragraph, because you can compare bottles.

Here are two notes written with it, for generic styles rather than particular bottles.

A young, unoaked white from a cool climate: Pale lemon. Lime, green apple and freshly cut grass, with a hint of wet stone. Dry, high acidity, light body, medium alcohol. Crisp and zesty, medium finish. Balanced and refreshing, simple rather than complex; one for a goat's cheese salad.

A full-bodied, oak-aged red from a warm climate: Deep ruby with a purple rim. Blackberry, plum and black pepper, with vanilla and smoke from the oak. Dry, medium acidity, high but ripe tannin, high alcohol, full body. Velvety and slightly warming, with a long finish of dark fruit and spice. Concentrated and balanced, with the structure to develop further in bottle.

Your vocabulary will grow with every note. For exercises that train your nose, try how to practise wine tasting at home. Wine is for adults of legal drinking age and is best enjoyed in moderation, so small pours are plenty when the aim is learning.

Wine words to avoid or use carefully

Some popular words confuse more than they explain. Say what you mean when you use them.

• Smooth: people use it for soft tannin, low acidity, no alcohol burn or a touch of sweetness. Say which one you mean, for example "soft tannins" or "gentle acidity".
• Dry vs drying: dry means no noticeable sugar. The rough, mouth-drying feeling is tannin, and a wine can be completely dry with almost no tannin. Use "tannic" or "grippy" for that sensation.
• Fruity: fruity is not the same as sweet. A wine can smell of ripe strawberries and still be bone dry.
• Strong: this could mean high alcohol, intense flavour or firm tannin. Pick the specific word.
• Legs or tears: the streaks running down the glass mostly reflect alcohol, and to some extent sugar. They tell you nothing about quality.
• Minerality: widely used but with no agreed definition, and it is not proof that minerals from the soil are in the glass. Describe what you sense instead: wet stone, chalk, flint or a salty note.
• Corked: a specific fault, usually caused by a compound called TCA, that makes wine smell musty, like wet cardboard. Bits of cork floating in the glass are harmless and do not make a wine corked. See wine faults.

If you would like to know what the main styles actually taste like before putting words to them, read what does wine taste like.