12-5 Cheating words

The most important thing to remember about tasting is that whatever you think you taste is what you should say you taste. I recall one time in my degree program at the Culinary Institute that a well respected wine student confidently stated that the riesling we were tasting reminded her of a woman in an orange tu-tu. While I, and many of my classmates giggled, our teacher just asked her to explain. Since I was giggling, I missed the explanation, but the teacher seemed satisfied. The moral is, that if a Certified Wine professional can taste a woman in an orange tu-tu in a glass of riesling, then you can easily taste just about any fruit or spice in your glass of wine. I do recommend, however, sticking to fruits and spices (and maybe some vegetables), until you've got some real street cred behind you.

Even with that vote of confidence, most people still want some guidelines that our easy to remember. Tonight I'll give you some safe, bare bones tasting notes and someday soon I'll elaborate a little based on varietal. You should be able to remember these without writing them on a secret piece of paper stashed in your pocket, or worse, the palm of your nervous little hand!
Pink to Pale Red Wine- Strawberries, raspberries, cherries, white pepper
Medium Red- Raspberries, black cherries, violet, white pepper
Dark Red- Plums, blackberries, cassis, black pepper (maybe even leather or tobacco)

Pale Yellow (like albarino, tocai fruilano, sauvignon blanc)- lemon, minerals (think wet stones), zippy
Medium Yellow (like sauvignon blanc, chenin blanc, pinot gris)- grapefruit, pineapple, peaches)
Darker Yellow (like chardonnay, viogner)- apples, pears, peaches, butter, cream, toast

Hopefully this will give you some confidence at your next tasting, and help you pretend you know a little something.