JimCook
Senior Member
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2007
- Messages
- 792
- Reaction score
- 5
I had a very interesting experience a couple of weeks ago in regards to the importance of alcohol content in wine. A friend of mine that lives in Madrid, Spain brings bottles over for me when he visits the United States a couple of times each year. One of the bottles from his last trip had been a 'lunchtime' wine that was being advertised in Spain. On the back of this bottle was a phrasing that essentially said, "This lower alcohol wine won't make you sleepy when you head back to work after lunch." The abv was 6.5% on this particular bottle and it was a dry wine.
One evening, several weeks after receiving the bottle, I decided to try some. So, I poured a glass for myself and one for my beautiful bride. The nose was of fruit and had a pleasant smell to it. The taste, on the other hand, was quite different. 'Flat' is an appropriate descriptor of this wine, the taste of which then resembled something more of non-sweet fruit juice than wine. Imagine that the flavor of wine is a small balloon that you put into your mouth when drinking the wine - this wine would have been a small deflated ballon that sat on the tongue and quickly dissipated.
While the wine ended up helping to rinse out out kitchen drain, it was a very interesting experience to see what happens when a wine has too little alcohol. It really proved the point in a very experiential way that wine outside of a certain range doesn't really taste like wine at all.
- Jim
One evening, several weeks after receiving the bottle, I decided to try some. So, I poured a glass for myself and one for my beautiful bride. The nose was of fruit and had a pleasant smell to it. The taste, on the other hand, was quite different. 'Flat' is an appropriate descriptor of this wine, the taste of which then resembled something more of non-sweet fruit juice than wine. Imagine that the flavor of wine is a small balloon that you put into your mouth when drinking the wine - this wine would have been a small deflated ballon that sat on the tongue and quickly dissipated.
While the wine ended up helping to rinse out out kitchen drain, it was a very interesting experience to see what happens when a wine has too little alcohol. It really proved the point in a very experiential way that wine outside of a certain range doesn't really taste like wine at all.
- Jim
