I have been amazed at the different tastes and nuances that I have been able to pick up in red wines. What causes a red wine to taste like tea, mint, or especially, chocolate?
Wine is an incredibly complex beverage which can contain scores of different volatile elements — the aldehydes, esters and miscellaneous compounds which make up the elements we interpret as flavors. Some of them share exactly the same molecular structure as elements present in other foods, such as cinnamon, vanilla, and butter, so you might say we are actually tasting “vanilla” in the wine. Other elements, either alone or in combination, simply resemble aromas that we associate with other objects, from gum drops to sweaty gym socks. The “chocolate” flavor probably results from a combination of these effects. What’s amazing to me is how often different tasters independently discover the same complex taste associations in a wine.
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