The Qualities of Wine - Flavor and Finish
FLAVOR
If a peach tasted like a tomato, and a pineapple like an orange, we
might just as well live on an unrelieved diet of mutton chops and
bananas. There would be no point in varying our foods if there were
little or no variation in flavor, texture and aroma. The same, of
course, is true of wines. If one wine had much the same flavor as
another—to many people they have—there would be nothing gained in saving
up one's two remaining bottles of premier grand crud Burgundy for the
special occasion. We might as well drink it with the next barbecue. But
fortunately there is a very great difference between a Chateau
Lafitte-Rothschild and a bottle of Dry Red from the Murrumbidgee
Irrigation Area. Dive la difference!
The flavor of a wine comes from its alcohol, from some of its acids and
from the tannin. Highly refined alcohol is almost tasteless, but in the
alcohol produced by fermentation are many chemical impurities known as
congeneric and some of these have very pleasant flavor. Fundamentally,
the flavor of a wine, even of a fortified wine, should have some
similarity to the flavor of the fruit from which it is made.
The alcohol has its own distinctive flavor, hard on the palate, but also
delicate and dry. The acids also contribute. Acetic acid has a tangy,
tending to sourish flavor. Citric acid is the acid of lemons, strong and
sharp, but there is only a minute amount of it in wine. Tartaric acid
and malice acid are soft in flavor, giving the wine a blandness. Lactic
acid, the acid of sour milk, also has a distinctive flavor, but also is
present only in minute quantities. Tannin, one of the two basic
preservatives of wines (tartaric is the other), has a dry flavor that is
detected at the back of the tongue.
The total flavor of the wine comes, of course, from the combination of
all the elements and it requires only the very smallest change in their
proportions to make a noticeable difference.
Sugar contributes a great deal to flavor. Its complete absence from a
dry wine leaves only the more delicate flavors of alcohol, acids and
tannin to impress the palate. Perhaps this is the reason the dry wines
are so highly regarded by the trained palate, for the presence of sugar
tends to drown them. Perhaps also it is the reason for the sweet wines
being so popular with the untrained palate!
FINISH
Finish, as its name implies, is the last sensation that a wine produces,
or fails to produce, in the sequence of appreciation. When one has
inspected the appearance and considered its color and clarity, or lack
of them, sniffed its bouquet and then allowed the palate free rein to
detect the various flavors, the wine is ready to pass into the limbo of
the stomach by way of the gullet. This is the last chance it has to
contribute to enjoyment and it is important.
Many a wine with fine qualities of appearance, bouquet and flavor, has
nothing left to offer at the finish. It disappears into the gullet
giving nothing on its way. At the end, it disappoints.
Finish is a flavor sensation, something the wine leaves behind on the
last of the taste buds. The expert will often describe a wine as having
a "strong tannin grip at the finish". Thus a wine that finishes well is
one that contains detectable tannin and minute quantities of other
elements that give their flavor as a "last taste".
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