To help guide wine lovers as they explore the world of wines available at the NSLC, we’ve created the Wine Discovery Guide. You’ve probably seen, and even used, this Guide already at your local store. The Guide categorizes our wines into six distinct taste profiles—three red, three white. The red profiles are Light & Fruity, Smooth & Medium, and Bold & Full. Let’s take a moment to fully explore what makes a wine Smooth & Medium. After all, it’s a very popular, crowd-pleasing Taste Profile.
A mellower wine
At a high level, you could describe Smooth & Medium wine as mellower wines with a smooth texture and jammy fruit flavours. Adjectives you’ll often see attached to Smooth & Medium wines are elegant, juicy, spicy, fleshy, tart, mellow and soft.
Medium body
The “medium” in “Smooth & Medium” refers to the body of the wine. While many factors contribute to a wine’s body, it is determined largely by the amount of alcohol in the wine. The lower the alcohol content, generally, the lower the perceived “body”. Medium wines typically fall between 12.5% and 13.5% alcohol content.
A great food wine!
Medium-bodied red wines are the quintessential food wine because they have balanced tannin and moderate acidity. Though you have a broad spectrum of food choices when it comes to pairing a medium-bodied wine, great bets are lasagna, pizza with red sauce, spiced and roasted meats, hearty soups, burgers and strong flavoured spices.
Mild tannins
“Smoothness” in a wine is not as easy to define. Despite many people’s perception of sweeter wines being smoother, a description of “smooth” doesn’t necessarily mean sweeter. Rather, smooth wines are generally wines with mild tannins. As a wine ages, its tannins become softer and rounder, and the acidity diminishes, making the wine more approachable and easy-to-drink.
Smooth & Medium grapes
Classic examples of Smooth & Medium wines include Sangiovese and Merlot, but there is a range of intensity among medium-bodied wines, from subtle to bold. Examples of subtle Smooth & Medium varietals are Sangiovese (Chianti), Grenache and Marechal Foch. Moderate Smooth & Medium varietals include Tempranillo, Merlot, Pinotage, Pinot Noir (Old World) and Ripasso. Then there are the bold wines, which include many Red Blends (New World Style) Syrah, Baco Noir and Carmenere.
The best way to understand a taste profile is to taste it. So get some friends together, pick up a few different Smooth & Medium wines, and you’ll get a feel for the characteristics that define this popular Taste Profile.