As I have "tweeted" before, i like to compare wine tasting as a little like going on hot date... When it is exciting, stimulating, and titillating, you want it to last for as long as possible, the whole night in fact....

And so it is with wine... When it gives you that peacock tail, those interminable layers of complexity... You want it again and again, each time as long as the next...

We are having so many wine tasting exam preps with wset diploma and level 3 students these days, it's super exciting! However I have come to realize that some concepts need more focus than others... My last post was about balance, this one is about length...

Here we need to understand why length is of any interest. Presumably, the first purpose of any wine is to give pleasure and this is in direct proportion with the complexity of the wine. The more complex it is, the more pleasure it gives. Acidity and astringency do not give any pleasure. Only the complexity derived from primary, secondary, tertiary aromas gives pleasure. As humans are inherently greedy, they want pleasure to last for as long as it can. Therefore, the length of the after-taste must be concerned with the aromas of the wine, not its sourness, astringency, or hotness/sweetness (from alcohol).

If the wine has a structural imbalance (read my last post), one of the component will dominate the after-taste and will negatively affect the complexity of the finish. Structural balance should act in the shadow of the fruit, not at its forefront. Only a structurally balanced wine will give the space the fruit needs to shine and give it the full extent of pleasures we (should) expected from it.

Many textbooks on tasting refer to the IAP, the intense aromatic persistence. This is the length of time from the moment the wine is expelled until the moment the structure (acidity, alcohol, tannins) claims back its position (usually felt when there is a sudden rush of mouthwatering acidity). If the fruit is concentrated and intense enough, it will take all of its deserved space and will delay the moment the structure will come back on the scene. However, if the fruit is not concentrated enough, the structure will come back to steal the show and dominate the palate too quickly - ahh, the bully...

It is the length of time the fruit and the fruit alone can be felt on the palate that must be considered as the length of the after-taste. It has nothing to do with acidity, tannins, or alcohol, which too often are adjusted to make the neophyte believe that the wine is long.

And so. Only complexity is worthy of a hot date that lasts forever....