Hey everyone!
I started my new job as a waiter and I don’t want to ask my colleagues all the time. So we have 19 types of wines (red, white and rose). However, the clients keep asking different things regarding our wines like “I want something not too dry” I get so confused, isn’t wine liquid? How could it be dry? How do I know when it’s a dry/fruity/sweet wine? Is there anything on the label to make it easier to identify?
I’d like to know the major differences between dry, sweet, body, etc. I was looking up on Google, but all articles sound way smarter than I can actually comprehend.
In: 64
A good resource that is easy and fun to read, good for both beginner and intermediate level, is the Windows on the World wine course book by Kevin Zraly. He was the sommelier at the Windows on the World restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center before 9/11. He ran a well-known wine course and the book is an extension of that. Makes learning about wine very approachable. I have been enjoying wine for over twenty years and still come back to this book every few months to do some research and dig into something new.
Wine is categorized first by the kind of grape used to make it, and second by the region where the grape was grown. The region will influence the characteristics of the grape and may also influence the method used in processing the grape into wine.
The terms in wine tasting (dry, sweet, etc.) all have definitions that you can look up in the context of wine or wine making that will help you to understand how and when those terms are applied. ‘Dry’, for example, means not sweet. Full-bodied means it feels more viscous in your mouth than other wines.
I used to work as a lead server in a fine dining establishment. Ask the manager if they would consider doing a tasting for the serving staff. It is helpful to learn what the wines you stock taste like and how they pair with the offerings on the menu so you can be more knowledgeable on the floor during service, make more sales, and more upsells. We would typically have our vendor run the tastings and our chef would make a couple plates to go alongside what we were tasting to see how the flavor profile of the wines would compliment the flavors of the dish.
If you can’t taste the wine to describe it, it can definitely be more tricky.
Varietal means the type of wine. Many times the type of grape. Similar to apples (granny Smith, McIntosh, Pink Lady, etc) there’s different varietals of grapes and they all taste different. (Chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, pinot noir, etc). Some wines will be a blend of these different grapes. These varietals grapes will have similar flavor profiles consistently, but depending on the type of soil, temperature, year, and where in the world they are grown the taste will differ.
The body of a wine is basically how dense it is. When it is light bodied it feels more like water in your mouth. Full bodied is heavier, like cream or milk.
The finish is the feeling or taste you get after the wine leaves your mouth. Some wine can have lingering flavors or feeling of dryness or sweetness.
A dry wine will feel not sweet. When it leaves your mouth you might want to sip water. An off-dry or sweet wine, will be just that. Sweet.
When you describe a wine it’s best to hit on these things. While some things can be subjective, generally the body, the level of dryness, and the finish are easy to describe.
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