Need help with a couple of terms....

I checked the lexicon here and didn't see anything, so I'll post this. I've seen the expressions or terms primary, and I think secondary or maybe tertiary used in describing taste. And from what I can tell I believe people are suggesting that a wine may be primary when it's young and there may not be a secondary or tertiary taste until it matures. And I believe these terms are being used to describe the fruit components. Can someone explain these terms, their meanings etc please.

Bryan

this one usually starts a fight.

Sometimes wine makers seem to use the terms to mean:
primary: fruit flavors (from grapes)
secondary: flavors arising from vinification
tertiary: flavors arising from aging

Personally, incorrectly or not, I usually mean a variation of above
primary: fruit flavors
secondary: flavors other than fruit that I find (oak, earth, minerals, etc) in young or maturing wines
tertiary: flavors that clearly indicate aging (decay, forest floor, etc)
Mine differs as sometimes I describe things as secondary that appear post-bottling, as a wine ages but before total maturity. That's probably incorrect, but makes sense to me.

Personally, incorrectly or not, I usually mean a variation of above
primary: fruit flavors
secondary: flavors other than fruit that I find (oak, earth, minerals, etc) in young or maturing wines
tertiary: flavors that clearly indicate aging (decay, forest floor, etc)
Mine differs as sometimes I describe things as secondary that appear post-bottling, as a wine ages but before total maturity. That's probably incorrect, but makes sense to me.

I've always used it your way and never understood the difference between flavors that come from grapes and flavors that come from vinification. Probably because I'm not a winemaker and have never vinified anything, but once it's in the bottle it would seem to all be a function of grapes + vinification.

Thanks for the reply Dale. I totally get the primary and secondary definitions, but I don't get the tertiary flavour coming from bottle aging. I'm a newbie and haven't had much experience at all with aged wines. This year I drank at 2001 Guigal Hermitage and that's the extent of my experience. And I have no idea how the taste changed with aging. I wonder what types of flavour examples are attributed to aging (besides let's say your example of a forest floor). And I'll just throw this out there.... I wouldnt have thought there were any flavours attributed to aging as I was (incorrectly) thinking that aging did not impart flavour, it only changed existing primary and secondary to make them smoother or more integrated. Or aging would mellow out tannins.

Bryan

I wonder what types of flavour examples are attributed to aging (besides let's say your example of a forest floor). And I'll just throw this out there.... I wouldnt have thought there were any flavours attributed to aging as I was (incorrectly) thinking that aging did not impart flavour, it only changed existing primary and secondary to make them smoother or more integrated.

I am sure that somewhere on the Web there must exist a list of those aromas typically thought of as tertiary. Here are a few that come to mind for me:

petrol in Riesling
honey in dry white wine
mushrooms in Pinot Noir
plums and leather in Cabernet/Merlot

Mark Lipton

Dale
My usage of the terms would align with the descriptions you assign to winemakers. I guess the contentious bit would be secondary and I take that to be any overt winemaking input I can spot (oak, lees contact, ripasso, etc.). I suspect I don't use secondary too much due to this very confusion of views.
regards
Ian

It seems that I have used the words wrong. I always thought it was a term used in one dimension (age) not in two (age + style). I have usually used primary for fruit aromas that seem painfully young and secondary for any aged aromatics. Mea culpa.

I guess the contentious bit would be secondary and I take that to be any overt winemaking input I can spot (oak, lees contact, ripasso, etc.). I suspect I don't use secondary too much due to this very confusion of views.
regards
Ian

Ok, I get that. But then the secondary elements are present right from the beginning along with the primary characteristics, which perhaps leads to some of this confusion.

[David M. Bueker]

I am sure that somewhere on the Web there must exist a list of those aromas typically thought of as tertiary. Here are a few that come to mind for me:

petrol in Riesling...

I disagree, as I often find petrol in maturing but not totally mature Riesling. It often goes away with further bottle age. I would call petrol secondary.

I am sure that somewhere on the Web there must exist a list of those aromas typically thought of as tertiary. Here are a few that come to mind for me:

petrol in Riesling...

I disagree, as I often find petrol in maturing but not totally mature Riesling. It often goes away with further bottle age. I would call petrol secondary.

I'll bow to you, O Riesling Guru, but I've heard the petrol notes in Riesling repeatedly referred to as tertiary elements, despite my own experience of occasionally getting them in young Rieslings.

Mark Lipton

With such difference in views, it strikes me as much better to avoid such terms (which could also be described as geeky & confusing to newcomers). They're not necessary, but merely a shorthand that has been shown here to be imprecise and confusing.

Primary is generally ok, and would be something novices might guess correctly
Secondary seems best described in either specific terms (e.g. oak treatment) or general terms (heavily worked, or with significant winemaker input)
Tertiary can easily be substituted by 'aged'

These suggestions themselves are shorthand and there's certainly the option of being clearer still.

regards

Ian

I'll bow to you, O Riesling Guru, but I've heard the petrol notes in Riesling repeatedly referred to as tertiary elements, despite my own experience of occasionally getting them in young Rieslings.

Mark Lipton

I'm going to fence sit on this one as I have detected this note on young and old Riesling, so don't know that it would be tertiary in the sense being used here.

BTW, I read a paper on wine maturation that included mention of some of the biogenic amines you can get with age. Where do you biochemists get your names - although they are descriptive, putrescine and cadaverine among them. "This wine has too much cadaverine for my liking..." Gack!

[David M. Bueker]

Ok so in re-reading this thread I use the terms differently than most of you:

Primary - all that stuff that is there when the wine is first released, including any winemaking inputs (e.g. oak)
Secondary - the beginning of maturation - this is where I pick up petrol/smoke in Riesling, fruit begins to back off, oak integrates in red wine, sugar fades somewhat (again a Riesling thing)
Tertiary - the signs of full maturity (forest floor, clove & dried orange, honey, old leather)

A lot of those ‘fruity” aromas one detects in a wine only become “apparent” after the action of yeast and bacteria. I think its best to think of the term “aroma” as a combination of varietal aromas plus any changes that develop during fermentation and aging. In mature wines the aroma will be transformed into a bouquet.

Salute

BTW, I read a paper on wine maturation that included mention of some of the biogenic amines you can get with age. Where do you biochemists get your names - although they are descriptive, putrescine and cadaverine among them. "This wine has too much cadaverine for my liking..." Gack!

Bill, if you ever have the misfortune of smelling aforementioned amines, you'll have no doubt how they got their names.

Mark Lipton

Ok so in re-reading this thread I use the terms differently than most of you:

Primary - all that stuff that is there when the wine is first released, including any winemaking inputs (e.g. oak)
Secondary - the beginning of maturation - this is where I pick up petrol/smoke in Riesling, fruit begins to back off, oak integrates in red wine, sugar fades somewhat (again a Riesling thing)
Tertiary - the signs of full maturity (forest floor, clove & dried orange, honey, old leather)

Although I rarely use these terms myself, that's pretty much what I always took them to mean.

Interesting that there's such diversity in usage. These appear to be even less precise terms than most of those used in describing wine!

primary: fruit flavors (from grapes)
secondary: flavors arising from vinification
tertiary: flavors arising from aging

I always took this to be the "text book" answer. But (assuming we are talking about wine for all three) I never really understood "primary" by this definition. There may be fruit flavours that are indicative of the grape variety used, but these fruit flavours are all the result of fermentation, no?

Personally I cannot help myself using primary for youthful, fruity wines, and secondary to indicate flavours associated with aging. And I think quite a few others do this too.

I always took this to be the "text book" answer. But (assuming we are talking about wine for all three) I never really understood "primary" by this definition. There may be fruit flavours that are indicative of the grape variety used, but these fruit flavours are all the result of fermentation, no?

Steve,
Do you not think that if you bite into a ripe Chardonnay grape it will taste fruity to you? Fruit, after all, usually tastes fruity. There are some fruit flavors that arise from vinification, but some are present in the grape beforehand.

Mark Lipton

[David M. Bueker]

Steve,

Chew on a Muscat or Gewurztraminer grape & you will understand that the wine tastes (and smells) like the grapes. Same goes for Riesling in a much less obvious way.

Interesting, until this thread I had never seen the term secondary applied to winemaking influences, only intermediate aging.

As David B has mentioned there are a number of grapes which are classified as “aromatic” grape (those which I refer to as possessing primary fruit aromas and flavors). By eating the grapes or drinking the juice one can determine the variety. For the most part however the majority of grapes posses’ precursors and only after the action of the yeast and bacteria will the “fruity” aroma become apparent (this is what I refer to secondary aromas and flavors).

Salute

As David B has mentioned there are a number of grapes which are classified as “aromatic” grape (those which I refer to as possessing primary fruit aromas and flavors). By eating the grapes or drinking the juice one can determine the variety. For the most part however the majority of grapes posses’ precursors and only after the action of the yeast and bacteria will the “fruity” aroma become apparent (this is what I refer to secondary aromas and flavors).

OK - that makes sense - that primary aromas/flavours apply only to wines of aromatic grapes.

[David M. Bueker]

primary aromas/flavours apply only to wines of aromatic grapes.

See I still completely disagree with that. We're talking about wine. Anything that's in it when it is first released (as a young wine - no counting late/cellar releases here) is primary. Some time brings out secondary elements & lots of time eventually leads to tertiary (and then death).

primary aromas/flavours apply only to wines of aromatic grapes.

See I still completely disagree with that. We're talking about wine. Anything that's in it when it is first released (as a young wine - no counting late/cellar releases here) is primary. Some time brings out secondary elements & lots of time eventually leads to tertiary (and then death).

It is just that you are using a different set of definitions to the ones I mentioned - heck, I don't even feel any great attachment to those definitions - see the post where I got into this discussion. It's just semantics.

The only factual issue at stake was the extent to which grape aromas come through after fermentation, and I now accept that it happens for some grapes.

Ok so in re-reading this thread I use the terms differently than most of you:

Primary - all that stuff that is there when the wine is first released, including any winemaking inputs (e.g. oak)
Secondary - the beginning of maturation - this is where I pick up petrol/smoke in Riesling, fruit begins to back off, oak integrates in red wine, sugar fades somewhat (again a Riesling thing)
Tertiary - the signs of full maturity (forest floor, clove & dried orange, honey, old leather)

David, I use primary and secondary the same way you do, though I never use tertiary, I just say 'developed'.
Sometimes I clarify my 'primary', as in 'primary fruit' and 'youthful oak'.
And despite the leaning towards aromatics, above, by some people, I think primary and secondary is more obvious in reds - but then I do tend to taste a lot of young Aus and NZ reds.
Cheers,
Sue