NYTimes: Asimov on Wine Lexicon

Interesting article by Eric in the NYTimes:
WineLexicon
on the wine lexicon he likes to use. Length/plush/minerality/lean/structure…
He tries to give a precise definition to those terms as he uses them, but that’s damnably tough to do. It’s a lot like pornography…very difficult to define but easy to recognize.
I’m pretty much in agreement with his definitions. Mostly, you pick up these definitions from tasting wines with other folks who use those terms.
“Minerality” is one that is particularly controversial in our group. Some folks totally reject its usage as not being sufficiently precise. But to me it is quite a useful term.
He rejects the usage of specific descriptor terms. Not sure I agree with that approach. To me, “strawberry” is a perfectly
useful descriptor to describe wines like Gamay/Brachetto/Freisa/etc. Or lilacs/violets/road tar to describe Nebbiolo. But if you’ve never walked beside a freshly tarred road, that descriptor may not mean much. Most folks can’t relate to “Kansas outhouse on a hot July day” to describe any Southern Italian wine…but to me it’s very specific because of my childhood experiences.
But descriptors like “Tasmanian bergamots roasted over a teak fire” or “gobs of hedonistic fruit”…meh.
One term he missed is “phenolic”. It’s that very distinctive aroma/taste of pine resin and cider that you find in skin-contact whites. If you’ve ever applied rosin to a violin bow…you know exactly what I mean. But one person in our group rejects that descriptor because he doesn’t understand what “phenolic” means. But most people in our group recognize that distinctive note when we taste skin-contact whites. Maybe Eric hasn’t tasted enough of them to use that descriptor.
Anyway…a mildly interesting article for mostly novice wine tasters but nothing profound.
Tom

I also enjoyed the article and appreciate the effort, which I think everybody who is serious about wine should do.
Still, it is a very hard job. For example, precisely defining the difference between “energy”, “tension” and “liveliness” is very hard. He tried, but I am not sure that he succeeded.
Similar problem differentiating between “focus” and “precision”.
As far as aroma’s descriptors, I agree that there are people who overdo it to a point where it does not make sense any more. But personally I find that when an aroma or flavor stands out and is very clear, it is useful to mention it in a tasting note.
Terry Theise in his first book also made a list of things which he thinks “matter” in wine. It was a useful read.

Do tasters reach for ever more esoteric and therefore worthless and often bafflingly specific terms? Yes

If descriptors are overly vague are they equally useless? Yes
Minerality, is just an example, salty, wet cement, flinty & chalky tell me very different things about a wine.

On the other hand do I need to know, what beach, the time of day & the manner of the salts gathering? No

“This linear, structured & minerally wine has length, depth & focus” makes for a pretty useless tasting note, also incredibly dull.

I think “phenolic” is as pointless as “fruity” or “mineral”. It doesn’t tell much, unlike terms like resinous, smoky, spicy (cloves, peppery), chemical phenolic character or perhaps phenolic bitterness. Many wines can show lots of different phenolic qualities and describing a skin-contact wine simply as “phenolic” doesn’t tell really anything useful about it.

Well, Otto…when I describe a wine as “botrytis”, does that mean anything? I think a high level of botrytis, which often/usually transcends varietal character, has a very distinctive character that’s easy to recognize. I lump “phenolic” and “botrytis” in the same category. Obviously, “botrytis” doesn’t taste/smell like the actual mold. Nor does “phenolic” actually smell/taste like phenol… as found in Cloraseptic.
Tom

I guess the problem here arises in that when you use the term “phenolic” you think of the phenolic molecule simply called phenol, whereas wines have dozens of phenolic compounds that have distinctive aromas and flavors that can all can be described as phenolic, since they all belong to the phenolic group. Without any distinction, the term is pretty moot.

Furthermore, if your “phenolic” does not even smell/taste of the actual compound phenol, why to use the term in the first place? If somebody says “phenolic”, I might think of a Belgian saison beer, a bretty red wine, a resinous orange wine or the bitterness in an Albariño white - all very distinctively “phenolic” characteristics but without any common ground.

And since botrytis tends to produce lots of different compounds, it usually has a distinctive character that can be easily described just as “botrytis” and most people will immediately think of the similar thing - unlike with the term “phenolic”. And even then, I might describe the botrytis character as “mushroomy”, “marmaladey” or “beeswaxy”, if certain compounds feel more noticeable.

Thanks, Otto, for eloquently explaining why I reject the term “phenolic” (I’m the person in Tom’s tasting group that Tom is referring to). I do, however, understand what Tom means when he says phenolic. It’s just that, since it bears no resemblance to actual phenols, which it couldn’t because there are so many, I don’t see why he doesn’t come up with another term. No wonder Asimov doesn’t include it in his lexicon!

I find minerality to be a useful term in restaurants. When a waiter or wine somm refers to a wine as expressing minerality, he or she usually means lean and high acid. As opposed to fruity. It’s useful because it tells you something about the style of the wine, which you’re asking about because you don’t actually know. Not because you want to know what the mineraly content of the wine is.

I’m not saying “phenolic” is a term one should use, just as a word alone it doesn’t tell much about the quality of phenols. There are tons of phenols in a wine, so one can definitely use the term, but without any descriptive terms it is as useless as “fruity”. One could say “smoky phenolic nose” to differentiate from the gunpowder smoky tones of a reductive wine or the smoky qualities in a wine aged in heavily toasted barrels.

And I think minerality and high acidity or not fruity are not synonymous. The certainly often go hand in hand, but I can come up with tons of examples which contradict your description. For example many a Timorasso is certainly high in acidity and quite mineral, but also very fruity and not lean - to the point that fruity is the most important quality here. Or a Palomino from the Canary Islands can be very mineral and lean, yet still quite low in acidity, true to the variety. I think “minerality” is a term on its own used to describe aromas and flavors that fall outside the vegetative realm (steely/stony/flinty/gravely/earthy/spicy/smoky).

Both Otto & Larry recognize in a wine what I call “phenolic”. They also recognize in a wine what I call “botrytis”.
Yet I cannot understand the difference…why one is an accepted term (“botrytis”) and the other (“phenolic”)
is not.
As Otto points out so well, there’s a whole range of sensations that come from the phenolic content in skin-contact whites.
So “phenolic” is a generalized blanket term that covers a multitude of sins in skin-contact whites. But it’s a definite distinctive
smell/taste you find in wines, mostly those w/ heavy skin-contact.
That same thing can also be said of the sensations that come from botrytis. The sensation of botrytis in an Auslese or Loire CB or Sauternes
has a lot of different manifestations. But the sensation of botrytis in TBA’s and Sauternes w/ heavy botrytis infestations has a very distinctive
smell/taste.
When I refer to “phenolic” in skin-contact whites, I’m referring to the higher phenolic content that those wines have, realizing that that is a
whole plethora of chemical phenolics in the wine. I am not suggesting that it smells/tastes like the simple chemical phenol, as manifested
in Chloraseptic. Just referring to the general character that the skin-contact manifests itself in the wine.
When I refer to “botrytis” in those wines, I’m referring the general character that botrytis produces in those wines. I am not suggesting that
it actually tastes/smells like the edelfaule/botrytis mold. I’ve smelled & tasted edelfaule w/ LenRosignana/StonyRidge and it is foul stuff (taste the
mold on an orange sometime) and it’s nothing like you find in a TBA.
So I’m a bit mystified why “botrytis” is an acceptable descriptor in TBA’s but “phenolic” is not in skin-contact whites.
Otto’s objection is that it’s not sufficiently specific and I should try to describe the various individual phenolics that are in the skin-contact whites.
But the same can be said of “botrytis” in a such-affected wine. The character of botrytis in an Auslese and a botrytis Loire, despite the sensations differing in the two
wines, but they have a commonality in smell&taste that comes from the botrytis.
To answer my own question…most wine drinkers have tasted enough botrytis wines that we have come to an agreement on what we mean by “botrytis” in a wine.
But the exposure of most wine drinkers to skin-contact white is not sufficiently widespread that we have yet to come to an agreement what we mean by “botrytis”.
Larry knows exactly what I mean when I label a wine as “phenolic” character in a wine. But objects to the term “phenolic” because it doesn’t smell/taste like phenol.
Otto obviously does as well…but just objects to “phenolic” as not being sufficiently specific to describe the various phenolics present.
But exactly the same thing can be said about “botrytis” as a descriptor. Yet they bot accept (I think) the use of “botrytis” as a descriptor.
I just fail to understand the difference.
Not to worry. I’m seeing the use of the term “phenolic” used more&more as a descriptor for skin-contact whites. Though it’s not taking the
wine world by storm. Asimov is clueless as to what it means, I suspect. But…just like “DollyPartinViognier”, “phenolic” will one day be another
TomHill descriptor that will enter the wine lexicon.
Tom

Even perhaps tongue-in-cheel, taking credit from the use of “phenolic” sounds pretty ridiculous since it has been in my lexicon for years and I’ve seen it used all over the wine and beer world. However, since I first learned it from Belgian ales - that certainly have nothing to do with skin-contact whites - it feels in wine lexicon as moot as a term like “fruity”. Yes, you can smell that there are phenolics there, but it still does not describe the wine at all. Does it smell like smoke? Resin? Clove? Leather? Peppery spices? I doubt the orange wine in your glass smells nothing like a Belgian saison, but that is my first association with such descriptor.

Fair enough, Otto. I see what you’re saying. It’s just an overly broad term you’d prefer not to use. Understand that.
Tom

Use it on its own. I certainly use it often, but describing how the phenolics manifest themselves. I guess you’d wonder why this Albarino doesn’t taste like a Georgian amber wine if I described it as very phenolic.

However, if I said it had a smoky phenolic nose and some noticeable phenolic - almost quinine - bitterness on the palate, you might not think of an orange wine first. Or maybe you would, I don’t know.