MOUTHWATERING flavors of spicy ripe raspberry, cherry, and boysenberry

[WestUniversity]

The bigger flavors I can taste, such as pepper or oak. Some of the other crazy things people can taste are lost on me...

 

[Amethyst]

I never read the label until after tasting the wine. I like to see how well the description agrees with what I taste. And not infrequently, it does. It's amazing to me, how grapes, especially green and white ones, can express flavors of so many other fruits, and even (with reds) chocolate and vanilla.

Even more amazing, considering I have only about a 30% sense of smell and taste, due to a virus I had in my 20's.

 

[Mdlerth]

Aka "Quintessence of Hangover"

Hints of light weight motor oils with a resonant Cough Syrup note.

I think the technical term is "fusel oils". If NYC needed to break bad on a beverage in the name of public health, they really missed the elephant in the room.

 

[Moemg]

Very nice Strawberry essence with a clean citrus like finish.

Boone's Farm would bring back memories of sneaking out of the dorm and woodstock and wearing bell bottoms and madras clothing . Those memories are worth buying a bottle but just looking at it for nostalgia but never drinking it because it tastes awful.

 

[NW-Bound]

Boone's Farm! I did not get a chance to drink it in my youth, but remember that we had a long discussion about it and some other drinks, here on this forum some years ago. A vestige of my superior memory!

Did a bit of searching, and found that rambling thread that ran to 848 posts! We talked about a lot more than just drinks in that thread, though.

And I remember posting the following reviews I found on the Web about some fortified wines that posters shared memories of.

I have learned so much from this forum, using the hints here. I just searched the Web for more info on this Night Train, found a site comparing Night Train, Thunderbird, and Cisco. I only heard of Thunderbird before this thread, now I learned of two more.

Here are the connoisseurs' notes on these awe-inspiring fortified wines.

"The Night Train runs only one route: sober to stupid with no round trip tickets available, and a strong likelihood of a train wreck along the way."

"Often, people on a Cisco binge end up curled into a fetal ball, shuddering and muttering paranoid rants... The FTC forced them to drop their marketing slogan, "Takes You by Surprise," even though it was entirely accurate"

"If you like to smell your hand after pumping gas, look no further than Thunderbird. As you drink on, the bird soars higher while you sink lower... WARNING: This light yellow liquid turns your lips and mouth black! A mysterious chemical reaction makes you look like you've been chewing on hearty clumps of charcoal."​

My oh my! How to choose? You don't. A well-stocked bar must have all three.

 

[Maenad]

I can say for sure that I've had mead with a "barnyard" flavor. Needless to say, I stopped drinking it immediately. Others I was with didn't get that, so it's likely my own body chemistry being super sensitive to something.

Fermentation does some amazing things to the aromatics in fruit juice. I usually use the descriptions as a mood ring - whichever sounds best to me at that moment is the one that will taste good to me at that moment. I can taste some things beyond the basic 4 - sweet, acid, oak, and tannin - but not much. Just an occasional pear or pepper.

 

[Winemaker]

Your mouth can only taste sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and some people, unami. Everything else is determined by your nose, and thereby everything is different for everyone. If a wine is too cold, the aromas won't evaporate, if you can't stick your nose below the brim of your wine glass, you have too small of a glass. Don't fill your glass past the widest part of the glass. Expose the wine briefly to oxygen before sipping. The sommelier tasting kit has 480 flavors/scents that must be recognized to know the whole realm. A lot of the time, you may not know or recognize that flavor or scent because you've never been around it. If you have allergies, the sniffles, pets, live near water, these all affect your sense of smell, and thereby your taste.

Here is an interesting talk about that very subject.

A disputable claim but none the less.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4381708/Wine-engages-brain-activity.html

And another.
https://www.townandcountrymag.com/leisure/drinks/news/a7830/smelling-wine-prevents-alzheimers/

Again, I always refer to the old experiment. Take several flavors of jellybeans in a bag, close you eyes, hold your nose shut. Put an unknown flavor jelly bean in your mouth, and chew. Taste the sweetness but no flavor. Release the nose, taste the flavor.

Above all, have fun. If you are w@rking to taste things, then you are not having fun.

When I spent my w@rking days in a coal mine, my sense of smell was very strong, because at times, lives depended on it. Hot oil or grease, electrical arcing, some bad gasses, smoldering coal, old works, fresh air were some of the scents I trained myself to recognize. I found small things before they became big fatal things.

 

[Winemaker]

"Spicy raspberry? You're a genius, Johnson!"

Al, drink a $20-25 Grenache from Pas Robles at 65 degrees. You'll get the spicy raspberry.

BigNick, if you want a wine that tastes like "grapes", I assume you mean like Welch's. Try Mogen David or anything made of Concord grapes, like Welch's.
If you like Welch's white, then drink wine made from Niagara grapes.

 

[mountainsoft]

With dinner, we had a Ravenswood Zinfandel that had MOUTHWATERING flavors of spicy ripe raspberry, cherry, and boysenberry, according to the label.

Does anyone really taste those things, or do they just make them up?

I often pick up a vanilla taste with Merlot (or was it Cabernet?). It kind of surprised me actually, as I thought all those flavor terms were nonsense. I can also pick up the oak flavor in some wines.

I don't eat many berries anyway, so I don't know that I would recognize those flavors even if I tasted them.

I do think some flavors are more pronounced depending on what you eat with them, such as cheeses or chocolates. My wife and I did a wine tasting in the Willamette Valley wine region and it was amazing how different chocolates brought out unique flavors in each wine. Of course, many of the chocolates cost almost as much as the wine.

I don't worry so much about the nuanced flavors of a wine, just whether I enjoy it or not. I've had some bargain wines that were amazing, and expensive wines that did not impress. Still, I think I would rather have two bottles of average wine than one bottle of exceptional wine.

 

[NW-Bound]

... I don't worry so much about the nuanced flavors of a wine, just whether I enjoy it or not. I've had some bargain wines that were amazing, and expensive wines that did not impress. Still, I think I would rather have two bottles of average wine than one bottle of exceptional wine.

+1

I may or may not observe a certain nose in a wine, and usually do not try to identify it. But I know if I like something or not.

Being an easy drinker, unless I find something really offensive in a wine, I enjoy it. And that's how I rarely pay more than $10 for a bottle.

 

[GravitySucks]

I had a bottle of Ravenswood Zin last Grocery Outlet trip.
I could taste cherries and blackberries. I don't know what bosenberry taste like other than the IHOP pancake syrup of that name.

 

[Winemaker]

I often pick up a vanilla taste with Merlot (or was it Cabernet?). It kind of surprised me actually, as I thought all those flavor terms were nonsense. I can also pick up the oak flavor in some wines.

I don't eat many berries anyway, so I don't know that I would recognize those flavors even if I tasted them.

I do think some flavors are more pronounced depending on what you eat with them, such as cheeses or chocolates. My wife and I did a wine tasting in the Willamette Valley wine region and it was amazing how different chocolates brought out unique flavors in each wine. Of course, many of the chocolates cost almost as much as the wine.

I don't worry so much about the nuanced flavors of a wine, just whether I enjoy it or not. I've had some bargain wines that were amazing, and expensive wines that did not impress. Still, I think I would rather have two bottles of average wine than one bottle of exceptional wine.

Any vanilla you pick up is a result of the degree of toasting/roast of the oak barrel. The profiles of toast, light to dark are vanilla, caramel, butterscotch, toast, coffee, mocha, leather, and tar. Those profiles are all there in different quantities, some perceptible to some, others not. And believe me, 90% of the time, I can tell whether it is American Oak or French Oak, Hungarian Oak.. The same profiles are in liquors such as bourbon, whiskey, whisky, tequila and others, but those barrels are usually charred, and the barrel heads toasted.

As with your experience with chocolate, the same goes with other foods. A local restaurant gave a wine dinner with 5 courses, serving a white wine with each course. An admitted wine snob, or just an educated consumer of wine, I was amazed that they served the same wine with 4 courses, and the wine tasted different at each course.

For those of you who imbibe in bourbons or whiskey,whisky try adding a tablespoon of unsweetened tea to the glass. It will bring out more of the different nuances of the spirit, courtesy of the WSJ article a few years back.

 

[braumeister]

Any vanilla you pick up is a result of the degree of toasting/roast of the oak barrel. The profiles of toast, light to dark are vanilla, caramel, butterscotch, toast, coffee, mocha, leather, and tar. Those profiles are all there in different quantities, some perceptible to some, others not. And believe me, 90% of the time, I can tell whether it is American Oak or French Oak, Hungarian Oak.. The same profiles are in liquors such as bourbon, whiskey, whisky, tequila and others, but those barrels are usually charred, and the barrel heads toasted.

Good summary.
For completeness, here is another breakdown of wood-derived flavors:

Oak-derived flavors:

• Earthy (ash, mushroom, shoe box, wet cardboard, musty, leather)
• Herbaceous (weedy, dill, mown hay, menthol, grass, tobacco)
• Woody (planky, cedar, sawdust, pencil shavings, sappy, green, pine, tar, resin)
• Astringent (harsh, chewy, bitter, angular, tannic, drying)
• Spicy (clove, cinnamon, coconut, vanilla)

Toast-derived flavors:

• Sweet (brown sugar, bourbon, cotton candy, chocolate, maple syrup, butterscotch, hot fudge, caramel, molasses, honey, toffee, soy)
• Creamy (vanilla, cream soda, marshmallow, lactic, butter)
• Yeasty (popcorn, baked bread, bread stick, cookie dough)
• Nutty (hazelnut, walnut, almond, peanut butter, coconut)
• Roasted (cedar, graham cracker, toasted bread, coffee, mocha, cereal)
• Smoky (barbecue, grilled meat, bacon, sweet smoke, burnt sugar)
• Spicy (nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, licorice, anise)

Yes, I hear you laughing out there, but these are actual flavor descriptors used by many professionals in the wine/beer industry.

 

[Winemaker]

Good summary.
For completeness, here is another breakdown of wood-derived flavors:

Oak-derived flavors:

• Earthy (ash, mushroom, shoe box, wet cardboard, musty, leather)
• Herbaceous (weedy, dill, mown hay, menthol, grass, tobacco)
• Woody (planky, cedar, sawdust, pencil shavings, sappy, green, pine, tar, resin)
• Astringent (harsh, chewy, bitter, angular, tannic, drying)
• Spicy (clove, cinnamon, coconut, vanilla)

Toast-derived flavors:

• Sweet (brown sugar, bourbon, cotton candy, chocolate, maple syrup, butterscotch, hot fudge, caramel, molasses, honey, toffee, soy)
• Creamy (vanilla, cream soda, marshmallow, lactic, butter)
• Yeasty (popcorn, baked bread, bread stick, cookie dough)
• Nutty (hazelnut, walnut, almond, peanut butter, coconut)
• Roasted (cedar, graham cracker, toasted bread, coffee, mocha, cereal)
• Smoky (barbecue, grilled meat, bacon, sweet smoke, burnt sugar)
• Spicy (nutmeg, cinnamon, clove, licorice, anise)

Yes, I hear you laughing out there, but these are actual flavor descriptors used by many professionals in the wine/beer industry.

Wait 'til we tell 'em about the yeast created flavors! Or style and temperature of fermentation!

 

[braumeister]

Wait 'til we tell 'em about the yeast created flavors! Or style and temperature of fermentation!

Yeah, and storage conditions, aging, etc., etc.

But one of the nice things about doing tastings for most people is that after the first few, nobody really cares any more.

 

[ImThinkin2019]

When I was young there was a whisky advertised called Black Velvet. The ads showed a woman in a black velvet dress to evoke the thought of smooth.

I did try a bottle once and did not really detect nuances of toast, essence of berries, etc, like you wine lovers. I did however notice that it was smooth. The entire bottle was.

The one essence I did find was I could not stand up after the tasting.

Have not had any since.

 

[Amethyst]

Your observations in this thread are really interesting.

Any vanilla you pick up is a result of the degree of toasting/roast of the oak barrel. The profiles of toast, light to dark are vanilla, caramel, butterscotch, toast, coffee, mocha, leather, and tar. Those profiles are all there in different quantities, some perceptible to some, others not. And believe me, 90% of the time, I can tell whether it is American Oak or French Oak, Hungarian Oak.. The same profiles are in liquors such as bourbon, whiskey, whisky, tequila and others, but those barrels are usually charred, and the barrel heads toasted.

As with your experience with chocolate, the same goes with other foods. A local restaurant gave a wine dinner with 5 courses, serving a white wine with each course. An admitted wine snob, or just an educated consumer of wine, I was amazed that they served the same wine with 4 courses, and the wine tasted different at each course.

For those of you who imbibe in bourbons or whiskey,whisky try adding a tablespoon of unsweetened tea to the glass. It will bring out more of the different nuances of the spirit, courtesy of the WSJ article a few years back.

 

[TromboneAl]

Okay, this takes the cake. On a bottle of cheap white wine:

The wine opens with aromas of daffodil, pear and apples, and hits of freshly baked French bread. Flavors range from peach to lemon tart and crème fraiche with a rich mid-palate texture and a finish of grapefruit and green apple.

 

[calmloki]

Wow. throw in smoky odor du abattoir and earthy pomme de terre and you have a full meal in a bottle. Three buck Chuck competes with the full meal deal.

 

[HFWR]

I’m reminded of the old joke involving an Avon saleslady and an elevator...

 

[RobbieB]

I don't drink that crap. Never drank "chuck" and never will.

 

[Winemaker]

Which flavors/aromas did you find?

Do you think the bottle was kept 55-65 degrees since it left winery?

Did the description on the label make you buy it?


I think you can afford to move up the wine chain than drinking "Chuck", but he makes some fair wines for $2.

 

[Islandtraveler]

DW is into the wine tasting thing. We go out to the vineyards regularly. Swirl, taste and spit. Kinda defeats the purpose in my view. Give me a vodka and club soda with lime. That I can taste as well as understand.

 

[TromboneAl]

I’m reminded of the old joke involving an Avon saleslady and an elevator...

Tell us the joke, and I will tell you where I bought that bottle of wine.

 

[HFWR]

Tell us the joke, and I will tell you where I bought that bottle of wine.

An Avon saleslady was alone in an elevator, when she passed gas. The resulting stench being nearly unbearable, she reached into her sample kit, and proceeded to spray some pine-scented aerosol to mask the odor.

Shortly thereafter, the elevator stopped, and a fellow passenger boarded. As the elevator continued its journey, the fellow passenger sniffed the air a couple of times, then commented about the strange odor.

The Avon lady inquired, “What does the odor remind you of?”

To which the other passenger replied, “Smells like somebody **** a Christmas tree...”