I love words. I’m using them right now. In fact, I use them all the time. I came across some interesting ones recently and wonder if you might guess what they all have in common, so, here they are. Litsea oil, resinous smoke, makrut, yuzu and shiso.
One thing they have in common is, they’re all words different writers used to describe what they discern in various wines. A second commonality is all of them appeared on one single page in a recent issue of a very highly regarded national wine magazine.
Also appearing on that very same page are a few more wine descriptors I’m a little more familiar with. Words like lanolin, beeswax, gardenia, lychee and guava. I know this second group much better than the first because I’ve used lanolin, played with beeswax, smelled gardenias, and have enjoyed eating those last two.
When I try to describe the scents, textures and flavors I distinguish in a wine, I always seem to start thinking about fruits first, and must remind myself of this biased inclination I have. Not all wines taste like a specific fruit. I can then expand my horizons to include litsea oil or shiso (if I actually knew what they were).
This descriptive, creative wine vocabulary fascinates me, and I try to add some of the terms I’ve read to my own characterizations, after I’ve investigated the original source of the scent, texture, or flavor. I’ve gone out of my way to analyze lychees along with many other things. I smell and taste these new things isolated by themselves, so they aren’t affected by any accompanying distractions, hopefully keeping my research clean.
This kind of experimentation means I occasionally come home from the grocery store with oddball fruits and vegetables, usually generating suspicious skepticism from my better half. I’ve extended my research to include many flowers, grasses and even rocks and dirt. (“Minerality” comes up all the time in wine magazines.) I once licked a piece of slate, as a few wine pundits have mentioned slate is a flavor they’ve tasted. My slate was tasteless.
Give it a try … it’s actually fun. And let me know if you comprehend resinous smoke. I’m having trouble with that one.
Ernest Valtri of Buckingham is a sculptor, painter, graphic designer, and a former member of the PLCB’s Wine Advisory Council. Contact Erno at ObjectDesign@verizon.net.
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