🍷 Finish (wine)

The finish (also called aftertaste or length) is what stays in your mouth after you swallow or spit a wine: flavour and aroma. Professionals tend to rate a wine higher when its finish lasts longer. It is also one of the few things in tasting that you can time with a watch.

A study of 133 red Bordeaux wines shows how that works in practice. Forty-eight trade professionals, including merchants, researchers, consultant oenologists, growers and coopers, tasted them and ticked a box for the finish. Low meant under 5 seconds, medium 5 to 10, strong over 10. A low finish went with weaker scores. The group of wines with the best average score, 6.01, was the one described as strong.

Another team measured the aroma side with a machine. Nine volunteers took a mouthful, spat it out and breathed into a real-time mass spectrometer for four minutes. Fruity esters such as isoamyl acetate had nearly gone by the end. Linalool and beta-ionone were still at about 40 per cent of their first-minute level. People differed a lot, and saliva seems to be part of the reason: more protein in the mouth gave more aroma early, slower flow gave more later. The authors point out that nine people is a small sample.

In a formal tasting the finish sits next to colour, aroma, taste and balance, and is judged on its own. Try it at home: swallow, count the seconds, then compare with the three bands above. If a friend counts differently, that is not a mistake. Their mouth is not yours.