There are little dictionaries and books with glossaries which are well worth reading. At the risk of offending those I don�t mention, I recommend the Gu�a Pe��n de los vinos de Espa�a (Pe��n Guide to the Wines of Spain) by Jos� Pe��n and El nuevo libro del vino (The New Book of Wine) by Carlos Delgado.

But you have to bear in mind that, sometimes, to read or understand some of the characters who populate our little world of wine, we need to learn a handful of key words.
Now I just need to decide which are the essential words, and which ones I�ll be forced to leave out:

ACID: used to describe defective wines, either because of a bad fermentation, because the grapes were harvested too soon or because the harvested grapes were bad. We also find a little acidity in wines which still need more time in the bottle. Beware of the current fashion for drinking wines that we should be leaving to mature in the bottle for a few more years.

HAPPY ACIDITY: we find it in those wines that have been in the bottle a good number of years, i.e. more than eight years, in which there is a touch of acidity� which gives the wine a hint of freshness, almost youth. This should not be confused with those wines we mentioned before, crianza (cask aged) or "young" reserve wines, which still need time to mature in the bottle.

FRUITY: these are wines whose aromas remind us of fruit. The fruitiness normally comes from the grape itself or its skin, and it is a sign of a well made wine and a ripe grape.
Certain overpowering aromas come from some additives called essences. A white can be fruity and so can a red, providing the latter hasn�t been "drowned" in wood.

FLAT: this is a wine which lacks aroma and taste. It may have had both when the bottle had just been opened but it lost them in minutes.

CORKED: this is a defect found in certain bottles, in which the cork�s decomposition or excessive porosity has given the wine an unpleasant taste of rotten wood.

BOUQUET: a virtue which few wines have, since it�s necessary for the wine to have to be some time in wood when it has reached maturity, after having been in the bottle.

CHARACTER: a wine with character is one which tells us that it was made with personality. Character is inherent in the way a wine is made or the region it came from.

THIN: this is a wine without character, that is, it has nothing to say .It�s drinkable but it�s neither one thing nor the other.

ROUGH: this refers to reds. It�s when its acidity, or its astringency have not been tempered by the years and they come on too strong. It may become a good wine if it is allowed to mature.

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