Often when thinking about wine, talking about wine, we get caught up in the aromas, the flavors, the balance, the food pairings. It is easy to overlook or sideline as a secondary analysis a factor that actually intertwines and weaves together all of the previously mentioned characteristics. That factor, would be the actually pretty enigmatic “mouthfeel”.

But what is mouthfeel? Is it actually quantifiable in some way, or is it just this touchy-feely (pun intended) ghost in the wine tasting arena? Well, both, actually. Let’s explore a bit of what it is and how it might affect your wine (and food, too) tasting experience. Bad news… by the end of this article we are going to have you chewing and sucking on your wine like a somm! But the reality is, by focusing on things like mouthfeel and focusing more on our sensations while we are drinking wine, it will allow us to enjoy it all the more, and appreciate it too! So in this new era of mindful drinking let’s embrace talking about mouthfeel.

What is “Mouthfeel”

Mouthfeel has a fairly simple, almost self explanatory basic definition: it is the “feelings” in your mouth, or the tactile sensations experienced in the mouth during and after consuming food or drink. In reality, it actually can be more than just what you feel in your mouth, but rather it is a complex interplay of various factors. These can be things like texture, aroma, and saliva. Let’s start with the most obvious and easiest to detect: texture.

We have touched on texture in our previous explorations of balance and food and wine pairing. We might find texture triggers in food such as the oiliness of grease, piquant burning of chili pepper, and crunchiness of nuts for example. In wine, we feel texture of the prickly effervescence of bubbles, the viscosity of glycerin, the back-palate piquant from a high alcohol, or the drying tannins of red wine. When we talked about balance, we mentioned how we want to consider tactile sensations (or mouthfeel factors) in contrast, such as balancing the juicy succulence of steak with the drying sensation of tannins, or the astringent puckering acidity of white wine to balance the buttery sweet tendency of a white fish. We can consider these elements as two separate things: the triggers and sensations. Sensations are what we sense, be it the flavor, texture, or physical response (such as salivation or puckering). Triggers are the things that can cause them, so chili peppers will cause a biting burn, and the lemons will cause the puckering.

Within the individual elements, we see how the interaction of acids, sugars, and other compounds in a wine, or a food, create certain textural mouthfeels as well. Take, for example, a common mouthfeel descriptor for a wine: body. As we defined this in our Wine Lingo Glossary, “Body is also evaluated on the palate, but unlike balance, which is based on taste, body is more about the tactile sensations produced by the wine. Evaluated as light body or full body, the more tactile sensations, like sweetness, acidity, or tannins that one feels (as well as how well they work together) the closer a wine moves to being full bodied. Working together, these elements create a wine that can colloquially be described as ‘having a lot going on’.” When people talk about mouthfeel they will most often use the term “body” to describe what they are thinking of in regards to the overall picture. However, it is important to remember that mouthfeel can also be the singular elements that build up to the big, encompassing mouthfeel experience.

Body, or the full, enveloping feeling a wine can create in our mouths, can create vastly different drinking experiences. After all, fairly important component to the feeling of body is glycerin, which impacts the viscosity or “thickness” of the wine. There is that common (and untrue) wine “hack” that to tell a good quality wine, swirl your glass and look at the legs, or arches, that are left on the wine glass as the liquid recedes back to the bottom. The theory is the more of these arches or legs, the better a wine. Well, no. While the overall quality and cleanliness of a glass might affect the formation or velocity of these legs, in a lot of normal cases, these legs can actually tell us something important: the body. The slower the descending droplets in the legs, the more viscosity, the more glycerin, the more likelihood of the wine having more body.

Saliva will interact with mouthfeel too: think of it as adding extra liquid to whatever you’re are feeling. As well, certain foods create more saliva, so we begin to associate those flavors with the saliva, and before we even put them in our mouths we are already salivating, producing liquid (just like Pavlov’s famous dog). Imagine thinking about biting into a lemon slice, how does your mouth react to just even the thought of it?

As well, textures, mouthfeels, can make a big difference in how we perceive wine and food. Take for example tannins. The rough sensation caused by tannins is often cited by many as why they avoid red wine. However, wine drinkers many not realize that certain wines and grapes have lesser or more tannins (take Nebbiolo used in making a Barolo Serralunga d’Alba: famous for its high tannins). Or that other factors such as body, acidity, and food pairings will also decrease or increase the perception of the tannins.

Wait, so all of this means that mouthfeel is not 100% objective tactile sensation, but it has a perceptual subjective side too?

Our Philosophy of Mouthfeel

With this psychological side to mouthfeel comes as well our interpretation of aromas; the line of what is a tactile mouthfeel or what is a flavor, or an aroma, is not really a black and white line. A bit like mind over matter or the power of suggestion, there is a middle ground when it comes to mouthfeel where our brains will try to fill in blanks with what it is feeling versus what it is smelling, or even what flavors it is tasting. All of this can effect what eventually our logical centers rule is the “mouthfeel”. Meaning, we might exacerbate, minimize, or even imagine certain flavors or textures based on other observances or knowledge we have of a wine.

Soils are a great example of this. While certain soils, like volcanic, can have specific expressions that will impact mouthfeel, there is also again to consider what we often consider “minerality” in wine is almost a saline type sensation. And when we know what type of soil a wine is grown in (perhaps something like a slate or schist for this example), we might have more predisposition to sense this sensation or flavors. This gives the impression of a tactile sensation in the wine that isn’t really taste, but another unlabeled dimension and complexity.

These added complexities can also directly impact mouthfeel, such as the descriptor “earthy”. While for some it might bring more aromatic sensations to mind, such as the aroma of forest floor or mushrooms, for others it can actually bring to find mouthfeels. In some ways it is tactile, like tasting the soil; while we don’t mean literally as in there is physical soil in the wine, we are rather talking about a chewy sensation some earthy wines can produce.

Personal Preferences

This mouthfeel unlabeled dimension in the end boils down to a large part of why wine selection can be such a huge personal preference. Besides the obvious of people preferring flavors and aromas, we can now consider this new dimension. Is a round full bodied wine or slim super acidic wine more preferable? There is also to consider the, admittedly small, subsection of highly sensitive people. Whether from neurodivergence or simply high sensitivity, certain people feel much more strongly towards certain textures or mouthfeels, having larger reactions or sensitivities to textures.

For example, have you ever had Skittles Gummies? They are actually a disconcerting candy… as they have the exact flavor of the traditional Skittle candy, however, the texture of a gummy bear candy. We immediately sense the aromas and flavors of the candy, and expect the gooey-crunch of a skittles candy, yet feel the hard chewiness of a gummy candy. The difference texture than the expected is strange, causes us to pause a moment and think “Hey, this isn’t what I signed up for.” Some people like this and enjoy the unexpected mouthfeel, for others it is a skin crawling cognitive dissonance.

At the end of the day, perhaps the best way to view mouthfeel is through the lens of mindful drinking. Interesting, different, and even unexpected mouthfeels give us something new, different to meditate on and think about while enjoying wine. We can focus in on separating out individual flavors, aromas, sensations, and textures with every sip. What a wonderful way to explore wine, deconstructing our glasses with a dedicated and mindful purpose to truly absorb the experience a wine can give us, in all its glory and sensations.

Feeling the Wine

Now, one thing we didn’t really get into is that winemakers can actually tweak texture to their liking… with additives (like this one). We prefer wines, though, that have not used additives to manipulate the mouthfeel and the texture. At Vero, we look for wines that allow the pure impact of nature to shine through, and that are not chemically modified in a lab, but rather crafted in the cellar and vineyard. In fact, we exist to allow all Americans, across the US, from businesses to consumers, to experience the pleasures of such un-manipulated farm to glass wines, and how can you get your hands on these hidden gems we forage for?

• If you are a distributor reach out to us introduce our highly curated portfolio of one of a kind small production wines to your state.

• We sell to wine stores and restaurants in certain states - contact us to learn more.

• If our farm crafted natural wines and olive oils are not in your local shop or restaurant, buy wine online here, and we’ll ship it to you, including wine gifts.

• We also have an award winning wine club for true wine explorers that are seeking to continually discover unique, sustainable and authentic small production wines they never had. These are wines selected by our sommeliers and curated for each box.

• We do corporate gifts and sommelier guided wine tastings. Email us and we’ll tailor unique and sustainable corporate gift ideas.

Wines with Exceptional Mouthfeel