Klem - How to talk about wine: discover the secrets of wine ten minutes at a time

CLARITY

Basic terms: bright, brilliant, cloudy, dark, dingy, drab, dull, gauzy, gloomy, hazy, inky, luminous, lustrous, milky, mucky, muddy, opaque, sedimented

Advanced terms:

unexpectedly muddied, looks like the North Atlantic, opaque black elixir, as inky and dark as an octopus wine, so dense you need x-ray vision to see through it

AGE

Basic terms: needs to age, well-aged, baby fat, backward, well developed, evolved, faded, fresh, green, long-lasting, mature, old old old, opening up, at its peak, promising, tight

Advanced terms: gawky adolescent, whiff of old age, creaking at the joints, embalmed, embryonic, comatose, barely evolved, foot in the grave, immortal wonder, all pooped out

EARTH

Basic terms: air, breeze, chalk, clay, compost, dirt, grass, gravel, hay, lawn, leaf, mineral, moss, mulch, peat, pebbles, quartz, rock, slate, soil, stone, swampy, volcano, water, weed

Advanced terms: volcanic ash, plain ol dirt, earthy perfume, rain forest, mineral pit, wet ground moss, river rocks, wet slate, freshly tilled soil, rotting straw, stagnant pond water

POWER

Basic terms: assertive, bruiser, concentrated, delicate, dense, extracted, energetic, explosive, feisty, fierce, forceful, gentle, gutsy, intense, punchy, straining, strong, virile, weak, wimpy

Advanced terms: velvety bombshell, fist-in-the-face, feral intensity, Mighty Mouse, pistol-packing, revved-up powerhouse, sense of shock and awe, slap upside your head, pumps iron

STRUCTURE

Basic terms: asymmetrical, backbone, bones, formless, big-framed, small-framed, framework, platform, scaffolding, scale, skeleton, spineless, structured

Advanced terms:

architecturally perfect, more backbone than a humpback whale, rack of bones, sinewy framework, dependable platform, built like a brick you-know-what house

COLOR

Basic terms: black, blonde, brick, brown, cherry, citron, dark, gold, green, inky, lemon, magenta, olive, pink, plum, purple, red, rose, ruby, scarlet, straw, sunset, tawny, violet, yellow

Advanced terms: squid-ink black, blacker than the devils heart, like looking into space, Darth Vader-dark, Aztec gold, inky abyss, ballsy deep purple, girly-whirly pink, ruby slipper, mellow yellow

ACID

Basic terms: acetic, brisk, brutal, crisp, edgy, fresh, lively, mouthwatering, nervous, pungent, racy, refreshing, searing, sharp, snappy, sprightly, stinging, tangy, tart, vibrant, zesty

Advanced terms: buttock-clenchingly acidic, cuts your palate to shreds, tooth-crackingly racy, nose-prickling pungency, like gargling with razor blades, enamel-ripping

BODY/ VISCOSITY

Basic terms: big, carnal, chewy, erotic, fat, fleshy, full, heavy, huge, lean, leggy, light, round, sensual, sexy, slippery, soft, syrupy, teary, thick, velvety, viscous, watery, weighty

Advanced terms: ultra-full-bodied, what a body!, bosomy, seamless fleshpot, axle grease, lean and mean, oil slick, sensual? Oh yes!, tears of joy, texture of 10W40 motor oil, almost weightless

DRY TO SWEET

Basic terms: arid, bittersweet, brut, cloying, dryish, nonsweet, oversugared, oversweet, semidry, semisweet, sticky, sugary, sweet, sweetened, sweetie, sweetish, ultradry

Advanced terms: ashes in the throat, as cloying as candy, dental nightmare, blisteringly dry, sickly sugary glop, flabby sugar bomb, sugarcanelike, smells sweet, powder-keg dry

FOOD, HERBS, SPICES, NUTS, AND BEVERAGES

Basic terms: apples, bacon, basil, beans, bread, butter, cake, candy, cheese, coffee, cookies, cream, eggs, honey, jam, meat, milk, peaches, pepper, salt, soda, tea, toast, vanilla, walnuts

Advanced terms: barnyard asparagus, smoky bacon fat, rancid peanut butter, burnt cabbage, fish oil, rotten garlic, hater-ade, V-8 juice, sour milk, funky nuts, ghastly pickle juice

HOW TO
TALK ABOUT
WINE

Discover the
Secrets of Wine
Ten Minutes
at a Time

BERNARD
KLEM

STERLING EPICURE is a trademark of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc. The distinctive Sterling logo is a registered trademark of Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

2012 by Bernard Klem

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 978-1-4027-7735-6 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-4027-9088-1 (ebook)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Klem, Bernard.

How to talk about wine: discover the secrets of wine ten minutes at a time / Bernard Klem.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-4027-7735-6
1. Wine and wine making. I. Title.
TP548.K546 2012
641.22dc23

2011025446

For information about custom editions, special sales, and premium and corporate purchases, please contact Sterling Special Sales at 800-805-5489 or specialsales@sterlingpublishing.com.

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

www.sterlingpublishing.com

For the five boys in my life,
whom I cherish beyond measure:

my two sons,
Laurence and Jordan,

and their three sons,
Adam, Aaron, and Kyle.

and

For Tina, my beloved, beautiful daughter-in-law who
died far too young at thirty-nine, leaving behind her
husband, my grieving son, and their two little boys.
There are no words to express this unimaginable
loss and the void it has left in our hearts.
We miss you every single day, Tina.

CONTENTS

In , youll find chapters that describe the different characteristics of wine as arranged in the usual logical sequence of wine appreciation: we look, we smell, we taste, we swallow, and we evaluate.

Youll also find a selection of descriptive language taken from real wine reviews: basic terms are at the bottom of the left-hand page, while more advanced lingo is at the bottom of the right-hand page.

O ne of an authors most enduring pleasures is to acknowledge those who helped bring a book to publication. I am therefore delighted to thank, first of all, Carlo DeVito of Sterling Publishing, who championed me in the belief that I could produce a meaningful introductory work with a light touch; Diane Abrams, my graceful and wise Sterling editor; Katherine Camargo, a wine pro who scoured every word and phrase to help make this a far better book; James Rodewald, who carried out the second copyediting review with equal vigor; and Michael Cea, my gentle but eagle-eyed production editor at Sterling. I am deeply grateful to them, as well as to the Wine Appreciation Guilds Elliott Mackey and Bryan Imelli, who distributed my first wine book and who introduced me to Sterling. Thank you all.

Another pleasure I enjoy as an author is to express my profound gratitude to Steve Lo, MD, my gifted and compassionate hematologist/oncologist who kept me alive these many years so I was able to write this book. He never gave up on me, and in turn inspired me to never, ever, give up either. So I didnt, and Im still here because of him. Thank you, Steve.

T his is a useful little pocket guidebook to wine geared to busy, curious, and smart people. Just like you, in fact.

Ill teach you just what you need to know, and nothing you dont, about the nature of wine, countries that make it, soil and climate, vineyards, the most important grapes and the wines they make, why grape-growing and winemaking are so hard, wine bottles, closures, labels, styles and fads, plus other relevant stuff. Youll also discover the reason wine tastes the way it does, and why it reminds us of so many other smells and tastes weve experienced before.