Fruit Flavours
Tasting notes for wines can often seem over the top and wild... freshly picked chives? Overripe peaches? Cherry blossom? We get it. It can sound absurd. But there is some method to the madness! The language of wine is based in food - there's no getting around it. As a beverage made from fruit, this makes some sense. Further to that, it is a drink that works wonderfully with food, so the descriptors used in the kitchen do work here as well.
The descriptions can still be a bit flowery however, so we've broken them down into categories that help you imagine where the flavours of any given wine might lie.
Stone fruit--red
Examples - Peach, Apricot, Nectarine
Wines - richer Chardonnay, Viognier
Tree fruit--aromatic
Examples - Apple, Pear
Wines - lighter Chardonnay, Pinot Gris
Citrus fruit--racy
Examples - Grapefruit, Lemon, Lime
Tropical fruit--aromatic
Examples - Mango, Passionfruit
Wines - Dessert Wine, Gewurztraminer
Red fruit--cellar
Examples - Red Plum, Strawberry
Wines - Pinot Noir, Sangiovese
Blue fruit--plum
Examples - Blueberry, Plum
Wines - Tempranillo, Cabernet Franc
Black fruit--earth
Examples - Blackberry, Blackcurrant
Wines - Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec