wine has one of the most complex flavors of
all our foods. Wine connoisseurs have
developed an elaborate vocabulary to try to
capture and describe these fugitive sensations,
one that may seem forbiddingly complicated
and fanciful. Many of us most of the time
would be content with the five F’s proposed
800 years ago in the Regimen of Health for
the School of Salerno:
Si bona vina cupis, quinque haec laudantur
in illis:
Fortia, formosa, et fragrantia, frigida,
frisca.
If you desire good wines, these five things
are praised in them:
Strength, beauty, and fragrance, coolness,
freshness.
On the other hand, we can learn to taste
much more in a sip of wine, and get more
pleasure from it, if we know something about
what’s in that sip, about the kinds of