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Wine - Flavors in Wine
Expert: Paul Wagner - 11/3/2009
Question
Paul - many reviews of different Cabernet's read " with wild strawberry and toasty caramel aromas" or " Flavors include dark chocolate or ripe raspberry" ect... Can you tell me if they add these spices/flavors or fruits to the wine or does it all come from the oak barrel it is stored in.
Thank You
Will
Answer
HI Will
This is a great question, and really gets to the heart of the problem with a lot of wine writing!
By law, you cannot add flavorings to wine, unless you note that on the label. So you may find some wines that say: "Chardonnay with natural peach flavoring" or something like that, but if the label says: Cabernet Sauvignon, then it must only have grapes in it.
But you are correct in suggesting that the oak barrels can contribute flavors to wine that is aged in them. That's a whole different ball of wax!
In general, the fruit notes--berries, apples, etc-- come from the grapes themselves. Different grapes have different characteristics, and one the tests for most sommeliers or wine experts is to try to determine the grapes used in a wine. Barrels, on the other hand, can contribute flavors normally associated with some spices: vanilla, cinnamon, and sometimes even dill. So in your first example, I would guess that the wild strawberry comes from the grape, and the toasty caramel comes from the barrel.
In the second example, the chocolate might well be a combination of both the grape and the barrel, but the raspberries are purely a grape flavor.
Hope that helps!
Paul Wagner
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