Click on each petal to learn more about Palate Character or sign in, join the taste56 community and let your palate do the talking!
Tasting Notes
Medium-plus bodied with youthful tannins. The aromas and flavors display bramble and red berry fruit, along with notes of tobacco, mint, rose, earth, asphalt, and cinnamon spice, displaying complexity and varietal character.
Body is the impression of a wines weight, density, or its ‘mouth-feel’. Some wines feel weighty, or full bodied, while others feel light bodied. Wine runs the gamut from light to full, with most falling somewhere in between.
TANNIN
Low
Subtle
Balanced
Pronounced
High
Tannin can range greatly in wine, but it is necessary to some degree, and a necessary constituent for red wines to age well. In high amounts, it can cause a drying affect, which is sensed mostly on the gums and tongue. Tannin is a natural preservative extracted from grape skins, otherwise known as polyphenols that are micronutrients and antioxidants with potential health benefits.
ACIDITY
Soft
Subtle
Balanced
Pronounced
High
Acidity is a foundational component in wine. In fact, low acidity, or ‘flabby’ wine (as the term suggests) is a negative. You can sense acidity mainly on the sides of your tongue. Acidity generally ranges from balanced to high. Crisp acidity adds freshness, making your mouth water. Acidity is a necessary element and helps to balance other components.
SWEETNESS
Dry
Off Dry
Medium Dry
Medium Sweet
Very Sweet
Most wines are characterized as dry to off-dry, but there are some grape varietals, like Riesling, that run the gamut from dry to sweet. The tip of the tongue mainly detects sweetness, which is why it is often the primary characteristic detected. Sweetness is derived from residual sugar that did not ferment into alcohol.
ALCOHOL
14.5%
Alcohol is the by-product of fermentation. Differing grape varieties have differing potential alcohol levels, but regardless warmer areas result in riper grapes resulting in higher alcohol. Alcohol level is an objective number, but its affect on its palate impression is largely determined with how well integrated and balanced it is with other components.
Nebbiolo is not only Piedmont’s, but also one of Italy’s most esteemed grape varietals, producing Tone & Backbone expressive, age-worthy wines. Nebbiolo is planted on south facing hillsides with the best wines planted on calcareous marl soil to the north and south of Alba in Barbaresco and Barolo. Nebbiolo tends to be pale in color, with brick notes with age that appear earlier than most other red wine varieties. In its youth, it has crisp acidity and high tannin, and with time displays ethereal perfumed aromas of including, cherries, tar, smoke, licorice, roses, and violets.
Vietti was founded in the 1800s by Carlo Vietti. While it is now owned by Krause Group, the fourth generation of the Vietti family, Luca and Elena Currado, still manage the estate and make the wine, principally nebbiolo and barbera.
Vietti winery is burrowed into the hills just outside of Castiglione Falletto, where they used gravity flow by design before it became a buzzword. The dark-stone winery rooms are juxtaposed by the bright sunny vineyards that constitute some of the most prized terroir in Barolo.
The wines of Vietti are intensely structured age-worthy wines that require patience, but offer beguiling aromas and flavors that make them hard to resist even in their youth.
Red Berries
Tobacco
Smoke
