How to Figure Out What Wine You Actually Like

Ep 169

You don’t need to know everything about wine to figure out what you actually like drinking.

Maybe you know you love certain wines but have no idea how to explain why. Or you walk into a wine shop and fall back on buying the same bottle because you don’t know what to ask for. In this episode, we’re taking wine tasting back to the basics and learning how to identify the characteristics you actually enjoy in a wine.

I break down some of the most common wine terms including tannin, acidity, body, dry, sweet, and fruity and what they actually mean when you’re tasting wine. You’ll also learn how simple side-by-side tastings and a few quick notes can help you recognize patterns in what you like and don’t like.

By the end of the episode, you’ll know how to describe your wine preferences and the three things to tell a sommelier or wine shop so they can help you find a bottle you’ll love. Because there’s no wine you should like, a good wine is simply a wine you like drinking.

Resources:

My 4-Step Wine Tasting Method to Build Your Wine Confidence - https://www.corkandfizz.com/blog/guide-to-wine-podcast-episode-1 

Episode Highlights:

• What tannin actually feels like in wine
• Dry vs. sweet vs. fruity wine
• How to recognize acidity and body
• Understanding aromas and tasting notes
• How to identify your wine preferences
• Easy side-by-side wine tasting experiments
• Why keeping tasting notes helps
• The 3 things to share when asking for a wine recommendation 
• Why your wine preferences can change

Transcript

0:09

Interested in learning about wine, but not sure where to start? You're in the right place. Welcome to the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine Podcast. I'm your host, Haley Bohlman, and I'm so glad you're here. I'm a wine enthusiast turned wine educator and founder of the Seattle-based wine tasting business, Cork Cork and Fizz. It is my goal to build your confidence in wine by making it approachable and lots of fun. You can expect to learn everything from how to describe your favorite wine to what to pair with dinner tonight, and so much more. Whether you're a casual wine sipper or a total cork dork like myself, this podcast is for you. So grab yourself a glass and let's dive in. Hello and welcome back to the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine podcast. If this is your first podcast with me, welcome. So glad you're here. If you've been around for a while and you have listened to any other episodes or maybe even the full library, thank you so much. I'm so glad you enjoy these episodes and I hope you like today's. Today we're kind of Taking it back to the basics. So this might be a refresher for some of you, but I feel like this is something that I get asked a lot. And so I figured might as well put it into a podcast, and that is how to build your own taste in wine. Or essentially, maybe that's not even the right way to say it. Maybe it's more about like how to define what you like in wine, how to explain what you like in wine, how to find what you like and then explain it to somebody. That's kind of our goal. So by the end of this episode, my hope is that you can walk into a wine shop or go to a restaurant with a sommelier, and you can explain to them the type of wine that you like, and they can help find you a great bottle of wine that will fit for your taste. Make sense? Okay. Let's dive in. So I said this in the intro a little bit, but I just wanna be totally clear. That this episode is not about teaching you what you should like in wine, because that really doesn't exist. That'd be like telling you what food you should like. Like, of course you're gonna like some and you're not gonna like others. That's totally normal. It's the same way with wine. There's nothing you should like. You're just gonna like what you like and not like what you don't like. It's simple as that. Instead, this episode is gonna be about figuring out what you Actually like drinking and then finding a way to put it into words. So as I said before, my goal is that by the end of this episode, you can walk into a wine shop or you can go to a restaurant. You can explain what your taste in wine is and get a great bottle of wine that you know you'll love. So in order to get us started, I am going to be a little boring. I hope not actually boring. I think, I think I make things pretty interesting. We are going to talk a little bit about wine jargon. We're going to, we're going to talk about the words. I know, I know they're, they're kind of overwhelming and especially right now in my postpartum brain, I am really bad with words. So really, I don't know what I'm doing recording this podcast right now, but we're gonna dive in. I know wine words. I can do this part. And I think it's good to start this podcast with the words because I think it's going to help you with the rest of the podcast. By the end of this, I'm going to give you a template that you can use To talk to a sommelier or a wine shop and share the wine you like. But first you need to understand, like, you need to know how to explain what you like. And in order to do that, you need to know the words to explain it, right? Makes sense. Okay. So let's just jump right in to probably one of the most challenging wine words to understand, and that is tannin. Now, there are plenty of folks who will say, I like a tannic wine, and then I give them a tannic wine and they go, oh dear God, no thank you. Which I understand. Tannin is confusing. Tannin is about this dry sensation that you feel in your mouth. It does not have to do with flavor. It does not mean that the wine isn't sweet, though they usually coincide, but that doesn't, that isn't what, that isn't what it means. Tannin is about, again, it's a dry sensation. It's a feeling like you have cotton balls in your mouth. It's a feeling like all of the saliva has kind of dried up. And you need to like lick your gums or like bring back some of that saliva. That is tannin. If you're a tea drinker and you've ever steeped like black tea for too long, like, you know, you go to make your cup of tea and you put your tea bag in and, and then, you know, the baby starts crying and you have to go take care of the baby. And then an hour later you realize that your, the tea bag is still in the water. And unfortunately, yeah. If you took a sip of that tea. That's going to be super tannic. It's going to make your mouth dry out. That is tannin in wine, and tannin in wine primarily comes from the skins and the seeds of the grapes, which the only wine that is in contact with the skins and the seeds mostly—we'll put a little caveat on the only—but mostly is red wine. That's why red wine is associated with tannin. But Each red wine has different levels of tannin, so it's good to know how much of that drying sensation do you like. And this might change depending on what the situation is for drinking the wine. You don't just have to say, I like no tannin. Maybe it's, I like no tannin when I'm just drinking the wine by itself, but if I'm having some cheese and charcuterie, there can be a little more of that drying sensation, right? So that, that is tannin. Now what tannin gets mixed up with a lot. Is a dry wine. A dry wine is a wine with little to no sugar. All right. So again, dry isn't really about a sensation or a feeling in your mouth. It's just simply, is it sweet or is it not? Make sense? Just a quick reminder, if you are not on my mailing list yet, what are you waiting for? I would love for you to join. When you do, you'll get a free shopping guide that has 15 of my favorite wines under $15. Head to corkandfizz.com, scroll down to the bottom, and there'll be a little section where you can join the mailing list. I send out a weekly newsletter filled with wine tips, recommendations, special offers, and so much more. Now let's get back to the show. Now I'm going to take us into sweet, right? See how these all kind of just like connect together? So tannin, dry sensation, cotton balls in your mouth. Dry, a wine with no sugar, simply put. Sweetness. Let's talk about sweetness in wine because one of the most challenging things With wine to just newer casual wine drinkers is differentiating between the flavor of fruit, like having a fruity wine and a sweet wine. And I don't think it's important that you like are able to like blind taste this in the wine, but I think it's important for when you're talking to somebody about the wine that you like. Many wines that have no sugar will have aromas and flavors that remind you of fruit. Which your brain will then go, oh, this is fruity. There must be sugar. Our brains try to connect those things. That is not necessarily true. So what I want you to think about when, you know, when we're thinking about sweetness is, do you like wines that taste fruity, that have, you know, aromas of fruit and like when you taste it, it makes you think of strawberries? Or do you want a wine that is actually sweet, that has sugar, that is maybe a little Richer, a little bit on the syrupy side. Like you want a little more sweetness in there and not necessarily the fruitiness. I hope that makes sense. Right? Okay. So we've covered tannin, dry sensation, a dry wine, that is a wine with no sugar, sweet wine, that is a wine with sugar, and then a fruity wine, which is a wine that just tastes or smells like fruit. But doesn't necessarily have any sugar in it. All right. These next ones I think are a little more straightforward. So we kind of covered the difficult ones already. The next is acidity in wine. So being able to say whether you like a low or high acidic wine can be really helpful. Acidity to me is like the opposite of tannin. It is what makes you salivate. It brings like saliva forward. Whenever I'm doing a wine tasting with folks and I'm having them check the wine for how much acidity it has. We do this thing called the drool test. Don't worry, nobody actually drools. Well, I don't think so anyway. But what you do is you take a sip of the wine and then after you swallow, you tip your head forward, but you make sure your mouth is shut. And the idea is, if you didn't shut your mouth, would you have drooled? If the answer is yes, high acidity. Not so much, low acidity, right? So acidity is basically, yeah, how tart is it? You can kind of think about it in terms of like Right, like lemonade. Like, how acidic do you want your lemonade to be? I also think about it in terms of like salad dressings, like a vinaigrette. Like, if you like a salad with a nice tart vinaigrette on it, you probably like high acidic wines versus like, if that's too much and you tend to go more towards the creamy like ranch dressing or Caesar, you might like lower acidic wines, right? So acidity is that like Salivating. It, you know, think about like a lemon, like makes you pucker up like a lemon. That is acidity in wine. Okay. We've only got a couple more. The next one is body. The body of the wine is the weight of the wine. And weight, I mean, W-E-I-G-H-T. How heavy does the wine feel? And what I compare this to, if you're like, I still don't understand what you mean by that, think about different types of milk. And like, I'm talking cow milk right now. So like a skim milk has no fat, right? And so it's very light. When you taste it in your mouth, you can feel that it's far more similar to water than it is cream, right? So it just doesn't have a lot of weight to it versus whole milk is going to be heavier. It's got that fat in there, so it sits heavier and it's very viscous. It coats your mouth. Yeah. Those are the differences between light-bodied, which is like skim milk, and full-bodied, which is like whole milk where it coats your mouth and it's heavy. So again, knowing what you're looking for when it comes to the body of the wine, do you like it to be lighter? Do you want it to, you know, just kind of be— watery is a bad word because I feel like it makes it sound bad to describe that. I think we're looking more towards like, do you like something that's just Light and refreshing versus do you want something rich and creamy? That's kind of more like what a full-bodied wine is going to go for. Okay. Last 2 terms. I don't know if they're necessarily terms, but just things to go over before we dive into kind of my tips for figuring out what you like now that you know what the words are. Alcohol is another component in wine, and this is just how much does the wine burn? Or how much heat is there to the wine. Generally, a higher alcohol wine is going to have more of that burning or that heat sensation. Also, alcohol contributes to the body. So higher alcohol generally means fuller body, heavier, like more, more viscous versus lower alcohol leads to a lighter body in the wine. And with this one, I feel like if you're a cocktail drinker, you can kind of think about like Do you like to taste the alcohol in your cocktail or would you prefer it kind of be covered up a little bit more? Okay. Last thing. And that is when we are giving tasting notes for a wine. So if somebody talks about a wine and says, oh yes, I get, you know, there's notes of graphite and wet leaves and lemon rind, right? And you're like, what do you mean? When, when have you tasted? those things? Why do you know those flavors? Just know that generally tasting notes come from the aroma. So what's happening is that someone is smelling the wine, or even when they taste it, that's more like they're getting the, the notes of the wine, and they're trying to relate it to something they're familiar with. We don't really in the English language, and I don't think in many other Languages that are commonly used today, there aren't really terms to describe different aromas other than like bad and good. And so in order to describe the wine, which so much of the flavor comes from the aroma, in order to be able to describe it, we need to compare what we are smelling to what we are familiar with. And so a lot of times it's different types of food, which seems more common and natural, but also things in nature, also things we're familiar with. Maybe it's like Wow, this wine smells like my dad's cologne when I was growing up. I had a wine that was like that. Turns out it's any wine that smells like sandalwood. That's what my dad's cologne was. Or maybe it smells like, you know, when you'd go over to grandma's house and it's because she always made apple pie, right? And so aroma is a major part of wine. You don't have to smell the things that sommeliers and fancy wine professionals smell. You just smell what you smell and try to describe it. That's it. It takes a ton of practice. You don't have to be amazing at it at first, but don't put a lot of pressure on yourself to taste or smell what somebody else does and just focus on trying to put into words or trying to connect what you smell and give it a name. All right. So that was the wine jargon. Hopefully it kind of gives you a good starting point. So we talked about tannin. Talked about dry, sweet, fruity, acidity, body, alcohol, and aroma or flavor. So now let's talk about how we're gonna use those terms to be able to determine your taste in wine. So the first thing, it's pretty straightforward. Just pay attention when you're drinking wine. You don't have to do this every time. There are plenty of times that I just pour a glass of wine and I'm just, I'm just enjoying that wine. That's it. It's simple. I'm with a friend or, you know, it's been a long day and I just wanna enjoy a glass of wine. Nothing to it. Just enjoy that glass of wine. But when you are feeling up to it, take some time to go through the tasting process of wine. And I teach a 4-step process. I guess you can do whatever you want, but mine is a 4-step process. You look, smell, taste, and think about the wine. And you're basically going through a lot of those things that I just talked about. The tannin levels. Is it dry or sweet? Does it have fruity notes to it? What's the acidity level, right? If you want more information on how to taste a wine, go on back to my very first podcast episode. I walk you through my wine tasting process. You can probably do this process in less than 60 seconds. So just when you have a wine, just pay attention to it. Pay attention to, you know, what does it smell like? What does it taste like? What do you notice? And when you're doing that, keep Notes. I know this sounds a little bit like homework and I hope I haven't lost you yet, but take some notes on what you notice about the wine. You can use an app like Pour Memory. They are some wonderful friends of mine that created an app in order to help you remember the wines that you taste, which is exactly what we're trying to do here. Or you can jot down the notes just in your notes app or go old school with a notebook. Totally up to you. And they don't need to be fancy, right? Yeah. We're not looking for super in-depth, paragraph-long, full-sentence style notes. Like, even just loved it, fruity, light, or not my fave, too rich, or whoa, that tasted like green bell pepper, right? Just little things that will help you both remember the wine and start to spot patterns. You might start to notice that, wow, I really like wines that are lighter, right? Or Ah, I noticed that like if the wine is too tannic, I'm not really too into it. I don't finish the glass. Just start to kind of pay attention to those, those patterns. Now, if you're still not sure and you're drinking wine, you're like, yeah, some things I like, some things I don't. I can't really put it like really like narrow it down yet. Try a side-by-side experiment. One of the best ways to figure out and to taste the difference in wines is to try 2 wines side by side and get some friends together to do this if you're worried about having to buy a bunch of bottles of wine, but. You can start slow, just get 2 bottles of wine. So, you know, if you can, your local wine shop is the best place to go to, but you could also go to the grocery store, liquor store, wherever they sell wine and try different comparisons. So I would recommend first, let's figure out if you like high acidity or low acidity wine, or if you don't care. So a high acidic wine, look for like a Sauvignon Blanc or Albariño from Spain is another good example. Versus a low acidic wine, maybe you might look for a Côte de Rhône Blanc. This is a, it's a white wine from France, from the Rhône Valley. You might also look for anything labeled Viognier. This looks like Viognier when it's spelled out, V-I-O-G-N-I-E-R. This is gonna be a lower acidic wine. You could also do the acidity. Those are all white wines. You could also do the acidity test with red wines, so maybe you do. A high acidic red wine would be like a Pinot Noir or a Gamay versus a low acidic wine, red wine like Merlot is a good example. Then let's test if you like oaked wine. So wine that's been in contact with an oak barrel of some kind. So go for one that has oak somewhere on the label or on the back label. It says something about being in a new French oak barrel. Being in new oak is a really good way that it's going to give it more flavor. Than in an old oak barrel, or look for something that says barriques, aged in oak, something like that. And especially Chardonnay. I know it sounds silly. It's like, oh, oak Chardonnay. We all talk about that, but really Chardonnay is a great one to tell if you like oak flavor or not. So look for a Chardonnay that says aged in oak barrels or fermented in oak or new French oak, anything like that. And then compare it versus an unoaked Chardonnay. So you could get a Chablis, a French Chablis. This is A Chardonnay that is usually not put in a new oak barrel, and it usually does not give you the oak flavor, but still tastes like Chardonnay. Chablis is C-H-A-B-L-I-S. You could also look for an unoaked or a stainless steel Chardonnay is a lot of times what they'll be labeled as. So try those 2 wines side by side. Another great side-by-side experiment would be testing out how much you like tannin in your wine. Wait, I know you think this is an ad, but it's not. So don't hit skip. I have a small favor to ask. Here's the truth. I will never charge you to listen to this show, but every episode takes time and money to create. So if this podcast has helped you pick a better bottle, learn something new, or just kept you company, would you consider becoming a paid subscriber? You can show your support for just $3, $5, $8, or $10 a month. To say thanks, every single supporter gets a shout out on the next episode I record. And if you choose the$10 tier, you actually get to pick a future episode topic. Setting up a subscription is a great way to show your love for the show. Just click the link in the description right now. Thank you for listening, supporting, and being part of my wine-loving community. Now let's get back to the show. So again, tannin is that dry sensation. You typically get this when drinking a red wine. And so, you know, you could try a high tannin red wine, which Cabernet Sauvignon is a great example of that, versus something that's low tannin, something like a Pinot Noir. And again, just try the wine side by side, see what you like, what you don't like, and kind of, again, jot down some notes. And if you wanna do more experiments, come find me on Instagram. I am more than happy to help you come up with some more side-by-side experiments. That you would find helpful or book a tasting with me. I can help you, you know, choose the wines and then walk you through the tasting and help you figure out what you like and what you don't like. Okay. Now we have learned what the words are. We have figured out ways to determine what you like and don't like in a wine. Now, lastly, let's learn how to share that wine profile or your wine taste with a professional. This is how you find amazing bottles of wine. What you're going to do, and I often imagine this as walking into a wine shop, but you can also do this at a restaurant with a sommelier. You can also do this online. There are a lot of great online wine shops that you can reach out to, you know, on social media or via email, and they can help you find some amazing bottles. This is the information that you're going to tell them. First, you're going to say, you're going to say 3 things. You're going to say what you like slash what you don't like. That's kind of like one thing combined, right? Like if you, if you're better at defining what you don't like, say that. But if you know what you like, so, you know, give details when you're saying this. So focus on what you like and again, not what you think you should say. So if you prefer, I really like fruitier red wines that I can put in the fridge. Uh, and I don't like that. I don't like red wines that have any tannin or anything that feels super dry in my mouth. Or maybe you might say, I really love white wines like Pinot Grigio and Chardonnay, but I don't want it to be too oaky in flavor. I want it to be more fresh and lemon flavored. So again, just kind of define, you figured out before what things you like and what you don't like. Tell that to them. Then say what the occasion is or what you plan to eat. So maybe you're having friends over for dinner and this is what you're serving, or you're at a restaurant, you're like, I'm gonna, I'm planning to order the risotto. Or maybe it's, I just want to try something new and try something this weekend. I probably won't eat anything with it. Or it's my mom's birthday. I want to have, you know, a special bottle for us to share. Anything like that. So we say what we like slash what you don't like, the occasion, what you plan to eat. And the third and final thing is your price point. I know this might like make you like freak out a little bit, but it's going to make it so much easier if you share how much you are comfortable spending. So you go into a wine shop, say, you know, I want a bottle that's less than $30, or hey, I'm splurging a little bit, you know, like I'd spend $40, but nothing more than that. Or I want something $20 or under. Like this is just a casual bottle of wine out. Yeah. Have with pizza tonight. Share your price point. That way they do not lead you astray. No wine professional is going to make you buy a wine— no good wine professional, I should say— is going to make you buy a wine that is outside of your price point. And they're not going to judge you for what your price point is. Just tell it to them. So let's put these things into action. So your 3 things you're going to tell them, you're gonna say what you like, what the occasion is, slash what you plan to eat, And your price point. So for example, I might go into a wine shop and I'll say, I love— let's hear, what do I love right now? I love rich white wines that maybe like medium acidity, medium to full-bodied with a lot of fun, funky flavor to them. I'm going to have it tonight with a roast chicken that I'm making. And it's just me and my husband hanging out, like nothing crazy. Do you have a bottle under $30? Or maybe I'll say, hey, I'm having some friends over for pizza tonight. I know we all really like red wines that are medium to low tannin, that have a little bit of fruit flavor, but aren't overwhelmingly fruity and are dry, no sweetness. I want to keep the bottles$15 and under. What would you recommend? So again, I'm sharing what we like and what we don't like, the occasion, what we plan to eat. And then the price point. That's what you're gonna say. Now, final notes on this. Keep in mind, your tastes will very likely change, so don't get married to a single description and be open to trying things that aren't typically something you would like. But do that more in a scenario where like you don't have to buy the whole bottle. Do it at a tasting or something. Also, you can like lots of different things, like based on the scenario. Like right now it is really warm out. So I definitely want a chilled wine. Do I always want a chilled wine? Probably not. But right now that's what, that's what I'm looking for. And your tastes can change. Like when I first got into wine, I loved high acid white wines, like breaking down the enamel on your teeth high acid. Now, not, not so much. Maybe if I'm having some oysters. But now I kind of go for the rich whites that like, actually I want a little bit of oaky flavor. I want a little bit of richness and heaviness to it. So your taste can change and you can like lots of different things. And finally, a good wine is a wine you like drinking. So don't worry about anybody judging you for what you like in wine. All right. I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Cork and Fizz Guide to Wine podcast. If you loved it as much as I did, could you take a quick second, rate it, leave a review? I just did this for a few new podcasts that I've been listening to, and let me tell you, It feels good to help out a fellow podcaster. And if you're not a podcaster, it still feels good to help me out. So go on Apple Podcasts. That is the best place to leave a review. But if you're listening on Spotify, you can simply rate it. Just, there's a 5-star rating option. I'm not gonna, you know, tell you it has to be 5 stars, but if you like it, that would be great. And if you know a wine lover in your life that would enjoy the episode, please share it with them. If you wanna show additional support for the show, you can become a paid subscriber. Click the link in the show notes and become a monthly supporter for $10 or less a month. You'll get a shout out in the next episode I record. Plus, if you choose the $10 a month option, you'll get to choose a topic for a future episode. In next week's episode, I'll be talking to Amy Yancey. She's a certified sommelier and the founder of Pocket Somm. Her career as a sommelier totally changed when she was diagnosed with a rare degenerative eye disease. She had to step away from restaurant service and build her own path in wine. So she has gone into starting her own wine club. She loves helping people discover thoughtfully made wine through education and storytelling. She has such a unique perspective on how we experience wine, and I'm so excited to share that conversation with you. Thanks again for listening. And if you wanna learn more about wine, come follow me @corkandfizz on Instagram. Cheers. Cheers.