WSET Level 3 Wine (Part 4) - Tasting Calibration for Tannin

For the fourth installment of this segment, we use a flight of Bordeaux red wines to illustrate the range of tannin in wine and how it can evolve over time, as well as the impact on style depending on the sourcing of the wine and the winemaking used.
What does all that mean?

Well, tannin is an important component in wine - we are talking primarily red wine in this exercise. Tannins are part of the group of phenolic compounds that originate primarily in the skins, seeds and stems, of the grape. Tannins provide two essential function in wine.

First, tannins are antioxidants, which means they help a wine age by binding up free oxygen in the wine and keep it from spoiling the wine. This is great if you want to put some wine away in your cellar and age it for a period of time. It is also why many of the wines that are considered best for collecting and aging are wines with elevated levels of tannin.

Secondly, tannin molecules attract to protein molecules and help to balance them out when we consume in conjunction with each other. Having a steak with a big red wine is a great combination because the tannins help to soften and pull back the richness in the steak created by the fat and protein, and can make a steak taste softer and give an overall better palate feel. 

It is important to understand that not all wines have equal levels of tannin and not all food has equal levels of protein. A T-bone steak will have a different level of tannin than a piece of salmon or chicken, and as such a different wine will be more appropriate in the pairing. The T-bone might be best with a rich Cabernet from Sonoma, while the Salmon will be better with a Pinot Noir from Oregon. The Pinot Noir has thinner skins and as such will not be as tannic as the Sonoma Cabernet Sauvignon. The Pinot Noir may get overwhelmed by a big steak, just as easily as the chicken can be no match for a big Cab.

Flight 5

1. Basic, young Bordeaux Rouge
2. Cru Bourgeois with some age (5 years)
3. Cru Classe Medoc (fully developed with 15 years of age)

Ok, so just upfront I am going to say that aged Cru Classe is not an easy or inexpensive prospect. Retail stores are not in the business of cellaring wines - they want to sell what they have not hold it. And anything c=Cru Classes has kind of gotten pricey over the past 20+ years. Although, you can find great wines in current vintage, the trick is to find and aged wine. And unless you had the foresight 20 years ago to stock away some cases or you have a rich Uncle that like to go to auctions and collect Bordeaux, you might be out of luck on this. Just do your best find a wine, and as noted in a previous post you can use a Grand Reserve Rioja as a sub. These are much more accessible examples.

A young Bordeaux and a Cru Bourgeois sample should be much more attainable and easy to find. Any good wine shop will have multiple examples of Bordeaux Rouge, and because this is not a fast turn-over category, the Cru Bourgeois on the shelves may actually be a few years old and a good sample for this flight.

Many younger basic Bordeaux are going to made primarily from Merlot, with some addition of Cabernet Sauvignon or Franc rounding out the blend. This means the wines will show very soft in the tannin structure and pretty red fruit forward for aromatics and flavors.  By soft tannins, I mean the grippy, astringent feeling we get on the ind=side of our cheeks and across our teeth and gums from tannins will be less intense than from one of the other wines int his set. In fact, the basic Bordeaux should be the easiest to drinks and least drying of the flight. Remember, tannins bond with protein and if we just taste a wine on its own with no food there is very little protein on our palates, naturally. Just the limited amount in our saliva is present without any food. Take a sip of wine and assess the tannin, then eat a piece of food with protein in it and see the difference on the palate for the wine and the food. A piece of meat, some cheese, or a piece of tofu if you are vegetarian/vegan will work.

When stepping up to the Cru Bourgeois, it is important to note that this category of wine is primarily a Medoc based designation, and as such the wines will often be based on Cabernet Sauvignon, although not always. A very high quality category of wine, these are some of my favorite value wines in the entire wine world. Great sourcing and regional knowledge in winemaking, and a periodic evaluation to maintain the Cru Bourgeois designation, but without the high price tag of the top Chateau from the region, all combine to give us a great wine category. These wines will show more depth and intensity in color, aromas and flavors, as well as tannin structure, typically. At five years of age these tannins will still be present and create the drying affect on our palates, but the tannins will have begun to resolve and soften, making for a silky style of wine that can be very versatile with food pairings. Chateau Greysac is a widely distributed example, but there are a number of example often in a well-stocked wine seller.

Moving to the Cru Classe wine in this flight, if you are lucky enough to be able to source this wine then you will have the opportunity to experience a tannin structure that is well on its way to being in harmony with the other components of the wine. Still youthful with regard to the fruit aspect, many wines in this category should have the quality and pedigree to last well beyond this, slowly and gracefully aging to the day they are opened. In December of 2023, I opened a bottle of 1983  Chateau Beychevelle  from my cellar, and it was, at 40 years, still holding color and the tannins were sound and supple. I took a bet many years ago and set this wine on the rack. But that roll of the dice paid off as this wine proved its value as a top level producer, and I was supremely happy with that decision. If you have a wine of a similar nature then you can contrast it with the younger wines that will have more robust tannins and and leave a much deeper drying or astringent quality on the palate than a wine that is fully developed.

So in conclusion to this flight, the learning outcome here is to demonstrate that wines evolve over time and the components in the wines change. Color changes - usually turning more garnet to brick in red wines (more golden in white wines). Wines will pick up more tertiary aromas and flavors over time. The process of cellaring a wine is basically a controlled process of composting slowed down and kept in isolation to prevent spoilage. This means we should expect to find more earthy and savory aromas/flavors in wines as they get older, as long as they do not completely spoil. And the mouthfeel of a wine will evolve as the tannins break down and become smoother and softer. The cells that originally came from the skins and seeds and stems of the grape literally break apart over times and become very fine grained - sometimes almost non-existent with enough time. These three wines, tasted at different stages of development, and overlaid with different quality levels, provide a great flight to experience these changes and understand development in wine.