Riesling

Most people believe riesling is a sweet wine, but this varietal can be made from dry to sweet. It has also been know to be made effervescent.

I really like rieslings and it is my preferred white wine. This varietal comes in so many different styles and you can almost always find one to fit your mood.

Riesling's most popular profile includes a strong floral and apple like aroma with hints of minerals. You may sometimes even smell a faint petroleum or kerosene scent. It has flavors of apple, pear, apricot, flint and minerals.

Rieslings can be styled differently because it is one of the varietals that can grow in both cooler and warmer weather. Here are the style profiles for the cool climate and warm climate rieslings.

Riesling Cool Climate flavor profile: lean, reserved, light bodied, crispy, tangy, high acid, apricot, green apples, and dry to sweet

Riesling Warm Climate flavor profile: opulent, full bodied, low acid, tropical notes, lychee nuts, and dry to sweet.

Come over to the Tasting Room and try the dry riesling from Pewsey Vale and then try the Leitz which will be a much sweeter counter part.

-H

Chardonnay

For my very first wine profile I chose the ubiquitous varietal, Chardonnay.
Chardonnay is rarely my first choice, but I like it. It is usually full bodied, off-dry, with notes of pineapple, apple, and vanilla. I usually drink Chardonnay from California.

Below are the typical flavor profiles for Chardonnay and I have also broken them down into Old World style and New World style.

Chardonnay New World style flavor profile: banana, pineapple, apple pie/cobbler, butterscotch, caramel, toast, burnt sugar, vanilla, ginger, nutmeg, a lot of oak, low acid

Chardonnay Old World style flavor profile: lemon, grapefruit, granny smith apple, butter, nuts, honey, minerals, flint, little wood, high acid

Here's a fun little game you can play the next time you are out for a glass of wine. Find out if you can get both an old world and new world chardonnay and don't let the server tell you which is which. See if you can identify the flavor profile and pick the old world vs the new world chardonnay based solely on smell/visual/flavor.

Feel free to check out some of the history and background of chardonnay too.

-H

How to describe a wine

I manage part time at a wine bar here in Houston, Uptown Park's The Tasting Room. We generally sell 12-15 wines by the glass. We break the choices down into red, white, sparkling, dessert, and a usually a couple of Sommelier Picks.

When describing a wine you generally want to talk about 3 things:

• Body - light, medium, full
• Sweetness (or lack of) - sweet, off-sweet, off-dry, dry
• Flavor - usually fruits but can include many other flavors too like herbs and spices too
  

If you know these 3 things about a wine, you can pretty much describe any wine in the world and the person you are describing it to will be able to tell if they'd like that particular wine.

Grapes, Wine and their Flavor Prophiles

As you may know, the same grape that is used to produce a wine can taste drastically different depending on how, when and even where that wine was produced. There are many factors that can determine the flavor profile of a wine:

• Old World or New World
  
• Oaked or unoaked
  
• Cool climate or warm climate
  
• Residual sugar or not
  
• Hang time short to long
  
• Fortified or not
• Soil Type
• Fermentation process
  

In the future I will be posting specific varietals (the grape) and their flavor profiles.