Lou Wine Shop

Every day at the shop, I find myself describing the body of a given wine, and our customers often meet me with a blank stare. Body is not a particularly aracne or unfamiliar term in the wine trade, but it is certainly a term that has little resonance outside of it. I have to acknowledge that outside of the hallowed halls of the vinous high castle, where all of us sport silken cravats, wear tiny gold pins that are the secret handshake of our trade, enunciate precisely, and scrutinize each and every wine with our well-seasoned tongues and jaded, half-lidded eyes, the body of a wine (and really, every beverage) is something that we all experience, but may not have the words to describe it. One shortcut for understanding a wine’s body is the oft-used coffee analogy: compare a shot of properly pulled espresso to a latte made with full-fat milk—the former is lean and fails to linger on the palate; the latter is mouth-filling and persists long after you swallow. But this analogy is only useful once you understand body, and it doesn’t make much sense if, like me, you typically guzzle your coffee greedily without pausing to consider what’s happening inside your oral cavity. And truly, what happens inside your mouth as you drink can be disturbing, once you begin to scrutinize it, as your tongue switches back and forth like a happy dog’s tail, lubricated by two different sorts of saliva. I don’t necessarily recommend paying too much attention to it, unless you’re a geek, in which case, you do you. Yet, a wine’s body is one of the most useful things to know about it, as it telegraphs context, the set and setting for a wine, as advocated by Timothy Leary for DMT experiences.

One clue to a wine’s body is its alcohol percentage. The 15% Napa cabernet that your dad enjoys will fill your mouth and crowd out all other flavors or thoughts. This is not an entirely reliable index, as there are 15% red wines from Mount Etna that paradoxically feel lithe and spritely, so there’s more than alcohol at work here, such as extract (the dry matter that remains after if you leave it to evaporate), fruit ripeness, etc.

Is it a warm day? You deserve a crisp, light-bodied, refreshing aperitif that lingers so briefly on your palate you wonder if you’re even drinking. Is it a cold day, and are you preparing a rich, earthy braise? Perhaps something medium-bodied, with a bit of tannin. Are you hiking on a cool autumn afternoon in Joshua Tree (for which I recommend a nip of old Madeira dispensed from a sterling silver hip flask)? Are you lounging under an umbrella at your friend’s pool, shooting the shit and trying desperately to take your mind off your anxieties? Perhaps a zingy, light-bodied pét-nat, where the carbonic acid will help wash away your troubles.

Tonight, we’re tasting wines that demonstrate the spectrum of body in wine. We’re starting with two very light-bodied wines: a bone-dry, Mosel riesling and an earthy, Loire Valley red made from grolleau, a grape that might become your new best friend. We’re then tasting two wines that are medium bodied, one of which is from the OG natural wine grower, Jean Foillard, and finally a full-bodied Spanish monastrell (aka mourvèdre) that manages to be full-bodied, but not thicc.