Need help with a couple of terms....

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.

And Sauvignon Blanc too - amazingly tasty grapes. They make all the table grapes, apart from Muscat (which we get as a table grape here), seem rather bland. Ithink that is why most table grapes are table grapes, because they make bland, neutral wine.

We have many definitions here.

Rather than argue that one is right and another wrong, let's recognise these are botched terms: imprecise and misunderstood. We all are capable of defining wine in more precise/consistent terms, so into Room 101 I cast at least secondary and tertiary (and if anyone feels primary is also misleading, sling that in there as well - remember to lock the door afterwards ).

regards

Ian

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)

This is what I think of when I see these terms used, but I see that is not what it meant by significant numbers of others. I would add that to me, tertiary is a positive descriptor indicating the development of complexity with maturity, not dried out fruit or other signs of senescence. Though I will admit that some of what I might consider a sign of complexity might be a sign of an OTH wine to someone else.

Ultimately, I agree that being more specific conveys more information than the use of the terms primary, secondary, tertiary. Personally, I stopped using these terms after being laughed at in a tasting by a bunch of wine geeks for using "tertiary." Apparently that was too geeky even for them...

[Robin Garr]

Coming late to the fray, here's a shot at a narrative definition that I took in the Aug. 20 30 Second Wine Advisor:

What happens when wine ages? ... <stuff deleted> ... The youthful fruit aromas and flavors (sometimes called "primary") and the aroma characteristics associated with wine making - yeast and oak, for example - (called "secondary") will begin to fade somewhat, ideally remaining present but taking a back seat to the intriguing, complex earthy flavors ("tertiary"), which may evoke a wide range of attractive aromas and flavors from toast or leather to woodsy or spicy scents. ... <more stuff deleted> ...

I think the real issue here is that these definitions are jargon, and there may not be 100 percent agreement among wine geeks as to what they mean.