# Plum, tobacco, grass, spice, etc. flavors



## wineforfun (Jul 15, 2013)

I notice on the back of various commercial wines they may read "has a taste of plum, blackberry, mocha and spice" or "has a taste of passionfruit, grass and citrus".
These are just a couple of examples as most wines read something like the above. My question is, how, if the wines are made only with grapes, are they getting the plum, tobacco, grass, blackberry, etc. flavors?
I realize the oak barrels will lend some flavors but not following how I am getting grass, blackberry, mocha, etc. in the wine.
Thanks.


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## jamesngalveston (Jul 15, 2013)

unless it says 100 % grape, it isnt.
http://www.ttb.gov/pdf/brochures/p51901.pdf


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## jamesngalveston (Jul 15, 2013)

and power of suggestion......ummmmm that has a hint of coconut.
just about everyone in the room will get that in there head immediately.
while there is no coconut at all....


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## wineforfun (Jul 15, 2013)

jamesngalveston said:


> unless it says 100 % grape, it isnt.
> http://www.ttb.gov/pdf/brochures/p51901.pdf




Great read, thanks James.


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## wineforfun (Jul 15, 2013)

jamesngalveston said:


> and power of suggestion......ummmmm that has a hint of coconut.
> just about everyone in the room will get that in there head immediately.
> while there is no coconut at all....




No I get that. My point is almost every bottle of wine has some reference to these flavors/qualities. How are they achieving this?
Also, one of our upper end wine shops down here told me that his wines(he only carries Napa Valley wines (no commercial wines, ie: Barefoot, Kendall Jackson, etc.) are made strictly with grapes. No yeast or sugar added, only what naturally occurs in/on the grapes themselves. With that said, then how would one get a blackberry, plum, mocha flavor?


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## BernardSmith (Jul 15, 2013)

James, I am not sure that I agree with you. Wineforfun, here's why: What does a grape taste like? If your answer is that a grape tastes like... a grape then you have answered your own question, but if you think that the flavor of anything is incredibly complex and that it is very possible to educate your palate to identify the complex flavors in things thus enabling folk with an educated palate and nose to talk about those flavors and aromas in ways others can verify (or not) and that a dozen people with "educated" palates and noses would be able to detect the same flavor notes even if they had no opportunity to be influenced by one another then it may very true be that a certain varietal or blend of grapes fermented together by a particular wine maker might provide grass flavors and mocha and coconut and spice and citrus. Sadly, my palate and nose are still very uneducated.


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## JohnT (Jul 15, 2013)

This is a method employed by tasters to describe the flavor profiles of a particular wine. This does not mean that it actually containes these as ingredients. 

For example, A classic cabernet will typically have blackberry or cherry flavors even though it is made from 100% cabernet grapes. Best to read the label carefully. If it describes its flavors, then I would expect that they also give you the grapes used. 

Another example would be chardonnay which typically has flavors of peach or straw. This is simply the flavors that the grape has provided.


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## saramc (Jul 15, 2013)

You will also learn that the many yeast strains are a big consideration when crafting a wine. Even tannins can have an impact on palate, or one's perception of the taste. And then you have terroir.


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## wineforfun (Jul 15, 2013)

Bernard/John,
Now that makes some sense to me. The different "flavors" are just characteristics of each grape and its fermenting and aging.


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## Thig (Jul 15, 2013)

Most tasting notes are complete BS and do little to help the consumer decide if the wine is "good" or not.

Ex: "This is gorgeous, with lush linzer torte, boysenberry pâte de fruit and plum sauce notes that captivate, while anise, Lapsang souchong tea and singed apple wood notes fill in the background. The long finish is fleshy and driven."


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## BernardSmith (Jul 15, 2013)

Thig, I completely agree with your point that the tasting notes have no bearing whatsoever on whether a wine is "good" or not, but I tend to think of taste notes much like someone providing me with a picture of how much red and how much yellow and how much white and how much black is in a particular shade of blue. Doesn't tell me whether that shade is good and it cannot tell me whether I ought to like that shade but it can provide me with some information about the "profile" of the shade. If I want to try to match it or mix that shade myself, that kind of information might be useful, and it may be a useful way to talk about that blue rather than just say that it was blue. And hey! "blue is just blue" really tells me very little about the blue and very little about why I might respond to that particular blue in a particular way that another blue fails to have the same effect.. But whether a flavor "captivates" or is "fleshy" or "driven" would seem to me to be telling me more about the writer than about the wine.


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## wineforfun (Jul 15, 2013)

Thig said:


> Ex: "This is gorgeous, with lush linzer torte, boysenberry pâte de fruit and plum sauce notes that captivate, while anise, Lapsang souchong tea and singed apple wood notes fill in the background. The long finish is fleshy and driven."



haha
That line is so true and typical of what I read on the back of most bottles. For me, it is all about taste. I often wondered what a long finish was as I thought once I swallowed the wine, it was finished.

My question was really how they were coming up with these so-called flavors and I think I have my answer with the characteristics of different grapes.


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## jamesngalveston (Jul 15, 2013)

Thig i agree, and as far as developing a palate sensitive enough to taste blackberries and lavender in a grape wine, that is a clever brain.
I wish that I could, but I do not even like grape wine, and i have never tasted a grape in my mango, never tasted mango in my blackberry and never have tasted a blueberry in my dragon blood.
I guess i am one of the few mis fortuned taste bud people..


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## Geronimo (Jul 17, 2013)

To each his/her own on tasting wines. Properly aged they will change their flavor profile. A grape that's stripped of it's sugars won't taste much like the original grape any more. The whole process of selecting grapes, oak and yeast will yield differences. 

I'm not saying I agree with those BS tasting notes. They are 100% subjective. But the notion that a fermented grape can taste like other fruit is completely agreeable with my experiences. I've even drank beer that tasted of apricots or grapefruit. I drank a Belgium beer once that tasted of bubble gum.


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## jswordy (Jul 17, 2013)

Thig said:


> "The long finish is fleshy and driven."



I had a girlfriend like that once!


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## seth8530 (Jul 17, 2013)

I am still learning how to pickout these flavours myself, but I can assure you that they do exist. Most of this has to do with chemistry and nice aromatics created as fermentation by products. Oak can add some obvious flavours. But, it is very possible for a fermented beverage to have a wide range of flavours not typically associated with grapes without having non grape products added to them.


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## jamesngalveston (Jul 17, 2013)

I do not doubt that people have better taste buds then others..I smoke...
Maybe my taste buds are dead....I wish I could taste all these things as others..but i cant.
I got into this to make fruit wine that taste like the fruit I started with.
If all of a sudden my strawberry/blackberry taste like grapes..Im guitting.


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## seth8530 (Jul 17, 2013)

jamesngalveston said:


> I do not doubt that people have better taste buds then others..I smoke...
> Maybe my taste buds are dead....I wish I could taste all these things as others..but i cant.
> I got into this to make fruit wine that taste like the fruit I started with.
> If all of a sudden my strawberry/blackberry taste like grapes..Im guitting.



It takes time and practice, I did not really start being able to appreciate the subtle flavours of wine until after I started enjoying good whiskie where such flavours are more obvious. From there I was able to jump back into wine and find a lot more of these flavours that they talk about.

Heh, strawberries that taste like grapes.. now that would be somthin


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## jamesngalveston (Jul 17, 2013)

seth I have been a whiskey drinker for 45 years...I love my good whiskeys for sure. i like black maple hill 21, forty creek, but my go to almost everyday is canandian club, are cc sherry cask.
glad u appreciate good whiskey...


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## seth8530 (Jul 17, 2013)

Yeah, I really learned to appreciate wine through whiskie, my mainstay is bourbon, but I am adventuring into scotch. My go to bourbon is buffalo trace or eagle rare.

I can not claim to have tried those whiskies though, I might need to pony up.


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## jamesngalveston (Jul 17, 2013)

eagle rare is very good...i stay completely away from Irish are Scottish .
More USA and Canadian. I started with bourbon years ago... i think its a little more harsh...but again we all taste things diffrently...


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## seth8530 (Jul 17, 2013)

Yeah, agreed glad to see an eagle rare fan. Bourbon varies greatly.. but I agree, it tends to be more intense. What kind of USA whiskie do you drink now days?


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## wood1954 (Jul 17, 2013)

My taste buds are pretty burnt out after drinking black coffee, eating dark chocolate and drinking lots of red wine for 40 years. my sense of smell is pretty bad too, probably getting Alzheimers, but when i was at a winery in Washington this summer, i was appalled at the writer of the label on one of the red wines when he stated that it had hints of pork belly. I think sometimes people drink too much wine while writing up these reviews of their wines. How ever if i was smarter i could identify the wonderful flavors in a good wine


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## Geronimo (Jul 18, 2013)

As long as the marital tool box is still working the rest is academic.


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## JohnT (Jul 18, 2013)

I would not take a "flavor analysis" from the back of a bottle. Lets face it, it is really advertising. Would you really expect to find.. "Wine has a gentile aroma of old sweat socks with just a hint of dirty diaper"? Of course not. 

This is usually BS gear more to selling the wine in question rather than giving an honest impression of the wine. 

That is not to say that these flavors do exist and can be detected by just about anyone. Right now, I have a 2012 cab (85% cab, 15% merlot) that has a bold black cherry / raspberry flavor. I would offer a taste, then say "take another sip and think of black cherries". Most of the time, I get a shocked "sonofabee-ach!" reaction.

There are a variety of "wine tasting kits" out on the market. The kit usually comes with several tiny bottles of perfume that closely resemble the flavor or aorma components in most wines. They are expensive, but they really do work in bringing flavor components into the foreground of your mind.


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## Boatboy24 (Jul 18, 2013)

seth8530 said:


> Yeah, agreed glad to see an eagle rare fan. Bourbon varies greatly.. but I agree, it tends to be more intense. What kind of USA whiskie do you drink now days?



Another fan of Eagle Rare here. They have a 17 year old version too. Very nice.


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## Pumpkinman (Jul 18, 2013)

I understand what everyone is saying regarding the flavor profiles such as "hint of tobacco and leather" and so on, but part of the reason that I make my own wine and beer is that I choose to think outside the box and taylor them to our palette.

I've made a habit of purchasing many different vintages of my favorite wines to try to see just how different these wines are, and the range of flavor profiles and characteristics they each have, and to get an idea of what I might expect from mine.

If anyone here that has made wine for any length of time can tell me that different variables such as yeasts or fermentation temps and length of aging and the vessel used to age, just to name a few, don't bring out different complexities, I'd feel really bad for that person, in my opinion, they would be better off drinking boxed wine. 

I will agree that at first, when I would read the reviews of particular wines that read "hint of plum and cherries" I thought it was nuts, and yes, at first, because of the reviews, I actually tasted plum and cherries. Now, after having the opportunity to drink a lot of good wine, I can pick out a lot of these characteristics, don't get me wrong, I don't consider myself a wine snob, but I do feel that I'm creative enough that my palate can distinguish various flavors. 

As far as the folks reviewing wines, although some may be a bit bizarre, their palettes are a bit more refined, here's a test for you take an Amarone or Valpolicella ripassa, decant for 2 - 3 hrs, or a 2006 Brunello and decant for 2 hrs and tell me that you can't pick out at least 2 or 3 flavors, I'd be real surprised, and probably recommend a nice bottle of two buck chuck....lol

Ask yourself why you make particular wines? 
Do you make them because they are "red" or "white", or is it because you prefer certain flavors and characteristics? 

There are so many variables and tools available to us to specifically taylor our wine to our individual tastes this thread almost surprised me.
Ok, my rant is done, I hope that no one is offended.


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## JohnT (Jul 18, 2013)

Pumpkinman, 

I do not see you as thinking outside the box (based on your last post). It is more like you are simply employing your own tastes and stye to this, our common art form. 

I could not agree with you more. Every technique you employ and every decision you make will affect the finished wine. Through experience, most folks tailor their process to suit their tastes. I find that this is a very common thing and not so far "outside the box" as you might think. 

To me, and example of being truely "outside the box" would be to make a wine the not only tastes great, but also can double as a carpet cleaner. Now that would be something!


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## wineforfun (Jul 18, 2013)

Well, for me personally, I just want a good tasting wine (according to my likes) and one that gives me the buzz too. Other than that, I don't care if my Zin has hints of leather, mulberry and rock. 

A local wine shop here in town was telling me that the wines he carries (mostly mid to upper end) are made with grapes only. No sugar or yeast added, only the natural sugars and yeast from the grapes. Being new to winemaking, I had no idea you could do this. I thought you had to add sugar and yeast to make wine. So with that said, that made me wonder even more how these wine labels were touting blackberry, mocha, spice, etc. when only grapes were being used.

My original question was how the label was promoting these other flavors when the wine was made with only grapes. I understand it isn't really a blackberry, raspberry, etc. flavor that is added, it is just something similar to that taste, per se. And I fully agree that when you are told "it tastes like coffee" your mind will make it "taste like coffee".

Good discussion.


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## JohnT (Jul 18, 2013)

wineforfun said:


> I had no idea you could do this. I thought you had to add sugar and yeast to make wine.
> Good discussion.


 
Most wineries do not add sugar since wine grapes (when ripe) should contain enough sugar on their own. 

Most wineries do add yeast, but a significant portion does not (opting instead for the natural yeasts that form on the grapes clusters while in the vineyard).


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## jswordy (Jul 18, 2013)

JohnT said:


> Most wineries do not add sugar since wine grapes (when ripe) should contain enough sugar on their own.
> 
> Most wineries do add yeast, but a significant portion does not (opting instead for the natural yeasts that form on the grapes clusters while in the vineyard).



Ah, I'd have to disagree on sugar. Out West, most wineries do not add sugar. In fact it is illegal in CA. But in the East it is pretty common, because eastern grapes usually do not reach adequate Brix without chaptalization.


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## seth8530 (Jul 18, 2013)

Yep, and many fruits are not near sweet enough without sugar additions.


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## JohnT (Jul 18, 2013)

I was saying that most do not add sugar. If you tally all of the wine produced globally, you will find this to be correct.

Some do, but most do not.


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## Thig (Jul 18, 2013)

Pumpkinman said:


> If anyone here that has made wine for any length of time can tell me that different variables such as yeasts or fermentation temps and length of aging and the vessel used to age, just to name a few, don't bring out different complexities, I'd feel really bad for that person, in my opinion, they would be better off drinking boxed wine.



I agree and when I said tasting notes are BS I did not mean to imply that different wines don't have different flavors. What I mean is that to the average wine drinker, and I consider myself average, they really don't help. After all, what does "Lapsang souchong tea" or "boysenberry pate de fruit" taste like? If the tasting notes are written for people who actually know what a "lush linzer torte" is, then fine.


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## Stressbaby (Jul 19, 2013)

I've tried lots of exotic tropical fruit with my old fruit buddies. I've found that fruit descriptions hinge on having a good "palate vocabulary."

You eat the longan, and you say, "hmm, OK, tastes good, tastes like a longan." Then someone says, "These longan really taste like cantaloupe." Holy cow! These really do taste like a cantaloupe!
Langsat - grapefruit!
Durian - vanilla flan from a garbage dumpster!

Anyway, my point is that initially I found myself with a very narrow vocabulary with which to describe the flavors. The more you try, and the more often you try, the more familiar you become with the distinct flavors (and aromas) and the better able you are to describe them to others.


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## wood1954 (Jul 19, 2013)

*wine tasting class*

This got me thinking so i looked for a wine tasting class online to help with my vocabulary and here is one i found that's free.
http://www.freewinecourse.com/
I might look into it after dinner tonite.


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## seth8530 (Jul 19, 2013)

Run through it and tell me what ya think.


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## vernsgal (Jul 20, 2013)

JohnT said:


> This is usually BS gear more to selling the wine in question rather than giving an honest impression of the wine.
> 
> That is not to say that these flavors do exist and can be detected by just about anyone. Most of the time, I get a shocked "sonofabee-ach!" reaction.
> 
> T



I have to agree with you!


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## Geronimo (Jul 20, 2013)

Thig said:


> I agree and when I said tasting notes are BS I did not mean to imply that different wines don't have different flavors. What I mean is that to the average wine drinker, and I consider myself average, they really don't help. After all, what does "Lapsang souchong tea" or "boysenberry pate de fruit" taste like? If the tasting notes are written for people who actually know what a "lush linzer torte" is, then fine.



I think they want to impress the rest of the world with their worldly palate. Believe it or not, you've eaten pate de fruit... remember those sugar coated jellied fruit candies we see around Christmas? I guess they could say "tastes like a fruit roll up" but somehow it's just not the same


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## seth8530 (Jul 20, 2013)

My thoughts on trying to find flavours in wine or whiskie. First, taste the wine or whiskie and enjoy it. Try and identify whatever flavours that might come across to you. Next, find a well respected online review tasting and see what they find. See how that matches up with what you found. Taste it again and see if you can find what they found.

Next, get another bottle of wine or pour of whiskie and see if you can apply what you have learned to your next tasting. After doing this enough you might be amazed at how much sophisticated your palate gets. It takes more than just drinking to develop the ability to taste all of these wonderful flavours that these people talk about, it takes practice and work on the part of the taster to be able to develop the ability to find and identify these things.


As far as the stuff goes that gets printed on the bottles... It is meant to sell the wine, and thus I would take an independent reviewers tasting notes with much more respect. However, I do believe that they tend to do a fairly good job at telling you what to expect from that particular bottle of wine.


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## wineforfun (Aug 12, 2013)

Just had to comment on the "description sellers" listed on wine bottles. 
I was reading through a circular a local grocery store puts out and they were discussing summertime recipes, wines, etc. They had a few wines listed with brief descriptions and I noticed one of them read "hints of black and blue fruits with a graphite flavor and smoky end".
Huh? graphite flavor. I would just like to know where a person can buy some graphite to try because "I gotta have me some graphite".

I think some of these people/wineries are really stretching to get the masses to bite on their product.


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## ShawnDTurner (Aug 12, 2013)

What they are describing is minerality. Depending on the location, soil types and grape variety that description is very possible. Chenin blanc is known for its flinty characteristics. Cheers


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## wineforfun (Aug 12, 2013)

Oh, I get that but come on, graphite? Just give a basic description if you must and call it a day. 
And I realize it is nothing more than a marketing ploy but some of these wineries/bottlers are really stretching it.


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## BernardSmith (Aug 12, 2013)

My money says that you certainly have access to loads of graphite. Pencil "lead" is still made of graphite, isn't it?


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## Thig (Aug 12, 2013)

BernardSmith said:


> My money says that you certainly have access to loads of graphite. Pencil "lead" is still made of graphite, isn't it?



Last time I chewed on the end of my pencil it didn't taste very good, and stained my teeth worse than red wine.


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## seth8530 (Aug 12, 2013)

I tend to beleive that it is more than just a marketing ploy. I have tried plenty of wines where the descriptions on the bottle did a pretty good job of giving me a good idea of what the wine will taste like.. Graphite might be stretching it a bit in the flavor descriptions sector tho....


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## EricMay (Aug 15, 2013)

It seems that a majority of wines will attempt to describe something as a flavor instead of what is, most likely, a retronasal smell. The phenolic compounds that are released from the seeds and skin during fermentation are likely what is causing the perception of different flavors, when really it might not be a taste at all. As for additive "non-grape" flavors, they are chemicals released from the binding of the grape through fermentation. There is no green pepper in a wine but instead terpene and no added passion fruit, merely thiol. As for the graphite, that might be a unique soil terroir that is trying to be showcased but I have to agree it's not necessarily the most inviting sounding flavor...


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## Geronimo (Aug 15, 2013)

Here's one from Wine library TV where he tastes a few select Amarones... and comes up with "spider web" at one point.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScUuDdOdaus[/ame]


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## jswordy (Aug 16, 2013)

Um, cross-link! 

http://www.winemakingtalk.com/forum/f128/random-wine-review-generator-39925/#post443674


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