Finish and Balance in Wine

Jancis Robinson's How To Taste: A Guide To Enjoying Wine

Jancis Robinson's How To Taste: A Guide To Enjoying Wine tells me that one of the best ways to judge a wine is by its finish.

The finish of a wine is also called its "length." Both words refer to what in a less noble beverage would be called its aftertaste.

A wine that "finishes well" leaves a long, pleasing aftertaste on the palate, after it has been swallowed. The finish can last for minutes, if not for hours.

Other wines may taste just as good, but their finish may not last as long. Those wines are accordingly inferior.

Some wines may leave an unpleasant aftertaste. They too are inferior. They may do so because they lack balance.

Good wine has a pleasant balance among four major characteristics of taste and mouthfeel: sweetness (from residual sugar), acidity (which makes for a crisp sourness), tannin (which when overdone makes the mouth pucker), and body.

Body is a sensation of weight that comes mostly from the wine's alcohol content, but also results from a high level of "extract" — fine particles of matter, derived from the grapes, now suspended in the fermented liquid.

Some types of wine are designed to be light in body, others are intentionally made to be more heavy. But a wine can have too little weight, making it insipid and watery. Or it can have too much weight, overwhelming your palate rather than tantalizing it.

Red wines are often intended to be tannic in character, but too much tannin makes them hard or harsh. Aging may cure that.

White wines tend to be best when fairly acidic, especially if they are also relatively sweet. The acid balances the residual sugar.

Residual sugar is the sugar that remains after the yeast have ceased fermenting the juice from grapes into wine. Some sugar remains in even the driest wine.

If sugar, acid, tannin, and alcohol are not well-balanced, the imbalance can become exaggerated in the wine's finish. In that case, the aftertaste will be unpleasant.