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Originally posted by Rik:
Easy enough.

Tannins can be either green and harsh (from the pips and the rists and by using unrie grapes), or fine and tasty (from the skins).

Think of the fine bitterness of dark chocolate as opposed to the bitterness you'll experience when eating grapes and biting the pips.

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Originally posted by Bosis:
When associating "fine" with tannins, you would be describing the intensity level of the tannic structure of the wine or stating exactly how tannic it is. Are the tannins smooth and suttle or are they overpowering or huge?

On a side note: I've been thinking about making a shirt for the last few years that reads "I Love Tannins!"

Because I do....

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Originally posted by mpls wine guy:
When describing tannins I usually go with soft, firm, or hard tannins. How tannins come out in the wine to me depends on how much acidity and fruit the wine has compared to the astringency of the wine from the structure of the tannins.

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If so, that leads to my next question. Is "bold" the right terminology to use when one tastes intense tannins in a wine?

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Originally posted by pape du neuf:

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If so, that leads to my next question. Is "bold" the right terminology to use when one tastes intense tannins in a wine?

"Harsh" is a better word than "bold". "Bold" would be understood to be a rich, high alcohol wine. Ripe fruit tends to cover up the tannic impresion, but riper grapes have less harsh tannins.
Tannins are a class of phenolic compounds that vary greatly in molecular size. The size of the molecule affects how it binds with proteins in saliva. Less ripe grapes and grape skins have the more reactive tannins that are responsible for the gritty feel and astringency.
Wine making techniques that maximize extract from the skin are going to result in more tannins going into the wine. Newer techniques like cold soaking extract color from the skins but leave much of the tannin behind.

So, to summerize, you can have a "bold" wine in the old world style, with lots of tannin resulting from high extraction and less ripe grapes, and you can have "bold" wines in the new world style with forward fruit, dark color, and soft tannins.

Now, what bugs me is the description of "sweet" tannins. That, to me, is a way of evading the description "sweet and flabby".

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Originally posted by Bosis:
Was the flinstone wine from the 03 vintage?

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Originally posted by daniel@chehalem:
I think there is a great deal of art and a small amount of science in judging tannin quality. In other words, I like to think of tannins in terms of a quality (fine, grainy, even chunky) and then an intensity. Whether this reflects any particular bio-chemical reality is really beside the point for tasting, although it is certainly of interest to the winemaker.

To me, "fine tannins" is a descriptor indicating a particular quality (rather than intensity) of the mouth-feel. I think you can have a wine with fine tannins that are still very intense and have a substantial drying effect in the mouth and, in contrast, a wine in which tannins are fine, but not as aggressive.

In Oregon, I find the Pinots really run the gamut. I think many do have finer tannins, but I have had plenty with grainy tannins, including one that reminded me of the a liquid version of the purple Dino Flinstone's vitamin. Now, that's grainy!

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Originally posted by GregT:
Sancho - good question. I think part of it is how we define the word "fine" when describing tannins. Fine can have different senses - e.g. finely ground nuts are not better, just different, than coarsely ground nuts. And fine when describing material can mean either that it's good quality, or that it's got a tighter weave and thread count, which is associated with quality but may not be what you want for your specific purpose.

Daniel described it perfectly - if your mouth feels dry after you swallow, that's usually due to tannins. Tannins can be a good thing in your wine, but you don't want them to be obnoxious and green. However, they are one of the things that can make your wines age and improve.

A lot of people confuse acidity with tannin - one way to distinguish, at least for me, is that acidity can be scrubbing but it usually makes your mouth water, whereas after tannins your mouth has to recover, if that makes any sense.

As far as "bold", that doesn't necessarily mean tannin - you can have bold whites, for examples, or even bold rose. For me, "bold" has more to do with overall intensity, not tannic material.

If you want a demonstration of tannin - get some cheap tea bags from the supermarket. Boil some water, pour it into 3 different cups, and steep a few bags in each. In one, take the bags out as soon as you have some color. In the others, leave them until your tea is nice an dark - longer than recommended on the box. Take them out of the second cup and in the third cup, squeeze them against the side of the cup a few times, then take them out. Taste the three teas.

There's pretty much no acid but lots of tannin and it's going to be a little bitter too. A better tea, made properly, will not have the harsh tannins of the second and third.

When you squeeze out those tea bags, you're ensuring that you get all the bitter tannins out. When making wine, you can use the juice that comes from the crushed grapes, called the free-run juice, or you can press the grapes to get all the juice out. In the first instance, you won't get as many harsh tannins. In the second, it's like squeezing your tea bags. There are tannins in the skins, in the pits, and in the stems of the grape bunch. So if someone does whole-cluster fermentation, they get tannin from the woody parts as well as the grape skins. All of those tannins are different too. And then wood has tannins so if they use fresh oak, they get tannins from the wood.

So you get all different kinds of tannins from all different places and sometimes they just taste god-awful and sometimes they all work together nicely. Lately more people have been talking about ripe stems and seeds - that's because those tannins will be "finer" or less harsh in your mouth, than they will from greener stems.

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Originally posted by Sancho Panza:

Daniel,

Thanks. Hey, can you recommend an Oregon Pinot in the $20 to $40 range (my usual purchasing span) with what you consider fine tannins?

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Originally posted by daniel@chehalem:

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Originally posted by Sancho Panza:

Daniel,

Thanks. Hey, can you recommend an Oregon Pinot in the $20 to $40 range (my usual purchasing span) with what you consider fine tannins?

Let me give it some thought and check through my tasting notes... funny how the ones with rough and grainy tannins are the ones that stick out in my mind...

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If you want a demonstration of tannin - get some cheap tea bags from the supermarket. Boil some water, pour it into 3 different cups, and steep a few bags in each. In one, take the bags out as soon as you have some color. In the others, leave them until your tea is nice an dark - longer than recommended on the box. Take them out of the second cup and in the third cup, squeeze them against the side of the cup a few times, then take them out. Taste the three teas.