Some concepts to grapple with Quality - Length

You have always heard that a key consideration in determining quality is length. The longer the flavours of the wine remain in your mouth after spitting or swallowing, the better.

Experience has taught me that a wine with long length does not necessarily make a wine better. It all depends on what flavours linger in your mouth? I have had wines which had undesirable bitter flavours lasting a long time. When evaluating quality, we have to look at the context in which the wine is being served. Is it to be drank by itself or with food? If by itself, then a long length is desirable but yet again there are exceptions.

The problem with a long length is that it makes the moment when you first taste the wine a pleasure. However, it can dilute the whole experience with the rest of the bottle. Flavour fatigue can set in and the next few remaining sips of the same wine may start to lose its appeal. Sometimes, a good wine is one in which you keep going back for more and more, like an addiction. Think of it as drinking very sweet apple juice and after a while, the juice tends to get flavourless. All you can taste is sugar and sourness. Or think bubblegum when after chewing for a while, the flavour disappears but in actual fact, it is still present in the gum. Too much of something can make it bad.

When eating food with wines, it is usually harder to appreciate the food as the backpalate flavours from the wine can come into conflict the flavours of the food. This is why I find a lot of wines that go well with food tend to wines from the low to mid-end price range. That is good news for most of us who can't afford to drink $50 bottle of wines daily. For example, a cheap bottle of highly acidic, Italain Pinot Grigio or Soave can suit flavourful dishes without overcoming the dish. Its acidity brings out more flavours just like squeezing a lemon on some dishes bring out flavour. If the acidic white wine had more flavour in the finish due to picking the grapes riper, fermenting them on skins or aging them in new barrels, those stronger flavours from the wine can still linger around and make each bite you take seem heavier due to a sensory overload.