VINsights: Acidity—The Source of Wine’s Superpowers

Acidity is wine’s most distinctive feature and one of the only wine components tasted with the tongue alone. It is perceived as a sour sensation on contact, similar to the tart taste of lemons, which triggers an automatic salivation response.

Acidity plays a critical role in wine’s ability to provide refreshment and to age gracefully by resisting oxidation. It is also the source of wine’s superpowers in partnering with food, making the drinker hungrier and thirstier, while also making almost everything eaten alongside wine taste better.

Wines are higher in acidity than most drinks thanks to the natural acids in grapes. These are essential to any balanced wine because, just as beer tastes unpleasant without carbonation, wine tastes flat without acidity. In chemistry, acidity is measured on the pH scale, while wine tech notes may list “total acidity” in grams per liter.

But perceptions of acidity don’t correlate perfectly with measurable acidity. Not only do some types of acid seem tarter than others, but perceived acidity can be dramatically affected by the presence of other wine components, like sugar or carbonation. For example, given two wines of identical measured acidity, the one with the highest sugar content will taste less acidic.

To assess whether any given wine is higher or lower than average in acidity, it’s helpful to think in terms of apples. The crisp, refreshing acidity level found when biting into a fresh apple is the norm. Wines with high acidity have the elevated sourness of green apples or even underripe apples. Those with low acidity do not lack acidity entirely, but the sensation is milder, as with that found in applesauce or baked apple pie.

Marnie Old is one of the country’s leading wine educators. Formerly the director of wine studies for Manhattan’s French Culinary Institute, she is best known for her visually engaging books published by DK such as Wine: A Tasting Course and her popular Wine Simplified series of wine tutorials on YouTube. Marnie currently serves as director of vinlightenment for Boisset Collection.

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