Long Legs and a Whole Lot More
January 19th, 2007 by Annette
Gotta Have Those Legs?
Now that I have your attention, let’s talk a little about wine tasting terms. Here’s a question: Have you ever been to a wine bar when someone says “Wow, this wine has long legs?” and think “what the heck does that mean?” Here is how the term “legs” is defined in The Oxford Companion to Wine”, 2nd ed., pg 403: “…tasting term and alternative name for the TEARS left on the inside of a glass by some wines.” The definition for tears, on page 694, is this :”…tasting term used to describe the behaviour of the surface liquid layer that is observable in a glass of relatively strong wine….These traces of what look like particularly viscous driplets are also sometimes called ‘legs’, and give some indication of a wine’s alcoholic strength.”
Meaningful Wine Descriptors?
So, legs can give some indication of the amount of alcohol in a wine and this may be of some interest if one is attempting to characterize a “big-bodied” Pinot or an “ultra-ripe” Zinfandel. In the end, although this term is well-defined, it really is not important. There are wine descriptors, however,  that are commonly used in modern wine criticism with seeming importance, but are ill-defined.  Here’s a sampling of these descriptors (I lifted these descriptors from two well-known, recently issued glossy wine magazines): “muscular”, “fleshy”, “energetic”, “racy”, “big-boned”, “easygoing”, “lively”, “angular”, “flabby”, “full-bodied”, “lean”, “poised”, “plump”, “tense”, “mellow”, “supple”, “thin”, “graceful”.  These terms are kind of anthropomorphic, but the bigger point I want to make here is what do these terms mean and do they carry the same implication they would for humans? For instance, if a woman in this day and age is called “big-boned” it is not necessarily a compliment and could be taken as an insult, but describing a wine as “big-boned” means what exactly? Is that a good or bad thing?? (I’m not exempt here, by the way. I know I use the word “flabby” all the time to describe mostly chardonnay that is low in acidity. Buy my “flabby” may not be someone else’s — is your wine flabbier than my wine? yuck).
Many folks — Ann Noble — most notably, have worked very hard over the years to standardize wine descriptors so that most in the industry know what it means when a taster describes a wine as offering “blackberry” flavors or “smoky” aromas. That is a great beginning, but there are definitely other characters in wine that obviously need descriptors. Should they be standardized? Is it even possible to do that? In the meantime, how does one interpret current wine criticism?
- Posted in Uncategorized, Wine Appreciation
- 2 Comments
February 08, 2007 at 11:17 am, Brett said:
Annette, spot on! We feel that wine writing is really poor in it’s current state, because, frankly, it fails in it’s most important mission – that of providing some predictability. “Flabby” is an exception, most of us know when we hit a flabby wine. I’ve often thought that having a good palate is one skill, and an entirely different skill than the one of converting one sensual experience (taste) to another (the written word). A clever writer no doubt can convince of his great palate through his words, but it is hardly an assured thing. Hmmm, just remembered I described a wine the other day as athletic! (I WILL preach on!)
February 08, 2007 at 2:23 pm, annette said:
Hi Brett, Good to hear from you and your thoughts on this subject and I defnintely agree that converting taste to the written word is quite an art in and of itself. Thanks for reading! Annette