The Auswine Forum

At lunch yesterday at a venerable dining instution we got around to the topic of wine tasting and the power of the words used. All this whilst craddling a dessert-style Semillon (her) and Viognier (me).

Apart from the usual descriptors - the one thing I could really pick out from my Viognier was an odour of carpet cleaning foam. Taken on it's own, that sounds rather unpleasent, but to me this was the closest way of descrbing a scent or an idea of the wine that I could come up with. I emphasise that the wine was excellent, and did justice to the sticky date pudding (or vice versa).

I was trying to make the point to my dining companion that because something may smell of 'barnyard' or 'animale' or 'tinned asparagus', just because those items per se sound objectionable, taken in context of trying to decipher a glass of wine they are reasonable and inoffensive.

I wonder if anyone else knows of wine descriptors that sound appalling, but are in fact quite reasonable - and perhaps desirable - characteristics of wine? Apart from the three above, I was also reminded by a work colleague this morning of 'cat's pee on a gooseberry bush' and 'petrol/gasoline'. Hmmmmm.

Brett

Nayan wrote:Brett

** Neither reasonable, nor desirable. It's a fault, IMO. At best, a tolerable one.

Stuart

Fly spray

We all taste things differently, and memory plays an important part in taste/smell.

Some people like to describe wine as tasting like gooseberries. I don't eat them very often and I don't remember what they taste like. But gooseberries is a good word to drop in when you are trying to think of something more sensible to say.

Actually I like wine that tastes like grapes...Riesling fits the bill most consistently on that score.

To each his own, a wine is only as good as it makes you feel, but I don't get my rocks off sniffing carpet cleaners.

Does anyone know of a wine that tastes like "grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine"

darby wrote:Does anyone know of a wine that tastes like "grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine"

Been reading Joyce have we Darby?

Sounds like a Yarra Pinot matured in high toast oak...

kerosene - in aged rieslings

squashed ants - clare cabernet

tar/ bitumen - barolo

aspirin - high acid semillon

wet dog fur - sauternes

DENTISTS CHAIR!

washing blood stains out of the carpet......

Fresh meat - like the smell of rump on the bench before you start seasoning it for the pan; I sometimes get this from merlot or cab merlot blends.

Cheers,

Nick

Cold lamb and fish oil - Rutherglen Tokay
Petrichor and Lantana - Alsatian Pinot Blanc
Old hymn book - Old Claret
Garrigue (those woody herbs growing wild in the South of France) - er, Southern French Reds...
Eucalyptus - Australian Reds

Desribing wine - the inlfuence of adjectives

Of course, when desribing wine, the inlfuence of speling should never be ovalooked, either.

- Furuhata

Many years ago I was at a very fine but 'stuffy' restaurant in Melbourne called The Beefeater, with a man who was trying to impress me. He had ordered a 12 year old bottle of Seven Hills. The sommelier duly brought it, already decanted and breathed, and I was asked to taste and comment. Upon nosing it, my comment was: Mmmm smells like old sheds......
The sommelier was not pleased...... quite huffy in fact!
My comment was not meant to be derogatory, and we went on to have an excellent meal, and the wine was superb.
I'm still not much good at the 'wine terminology' but have enjoyed 40 odd years of wine drinking! This can only be GOOD!
Yours in red
Pamela

This link is worth a go, and I suspect has been used in the press sometimes! http://www.gmon.com/tech/output.shtml. It comes from an article in the Killerby newsletter: http://www.killerby.com.au/Silly%20Tasting%20Note%20Generator.htm.
Cheers, Duncan