Wine Styles Guide

Tannin, acidity, body, sweetness, sparkling, fortified. The building blocks of every bottle.

Acidity in Wine

Acidity is what makes wine feel alive in your mouth. It's the refreshing, mouth-watering sensation that originates in the grapes themselves. High-acid wines wake up your palate. They feel crisp and bright. Low-acid wines have a softer, rounder character.

Wine Body: Light, Medium, Full

Body is how heavy a wine feels in your mouth. It's the result of several factors working together, including alcohol level, tannin, residual sugar, and extract. A full-bodied wine coats your palate and feels viscous. A light-bodied wine feels delicate, almost weightless.

Champagne & Sparkling Wine

Sparkling wine starts as still wine, then gains its fizz when CO₂ produced during a secondary fermentation becomes trapped inside a sealed container. When that container is a bottle and the wine rests on its yeast sediment for months or years, you develop complex savoury, baked aromas that define Champagne and other bottle-fermented sparklers. When the second fermentation happens in a pressurised tank and the wine moves quickly through filtration to the bottle, you get the fresh, fruit-forward style of Prosecco or the sweet, grapey character of Asti.

Fortified Wine: Port, Sherry & More

Fortified wines have spirit added during or after fermentation, bringing alcohol levels to between 15% and 22%, well above any still or sparkling wine. The timing of that addition shapes everything. Spirit added once fermentation is complete yields a dry wine; spirit added partway through halts fermentation, leaving residual sweetness.

Wine Sweetness: Dry to Dessert

Sugar drives sweetness in wine, and most bottles you'll encounter are dry. Yeast converts nearly all the grape sugar into alcohol, leaving little to no sugar behind. When sugar remains, you move into medium territory (think German Riesling or White Zinfandel), or fully sweet wines that coat your mouth like syrup.

Tannin in Wine

Tannin is what makes red wine dry out your mouth. It comes from grape skins and creates that drying sensation you feel in your mouth. You're not tasting it so much as feeling it.