Weird Wine Guide

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When looking for a wine with "funkiness".

Here's how to describe what you're looking for:

  1. Volatile Acidity (VA): Wines with a kombucha-like tang or apple cider vinegar prickle.
  2. Brett/Brettanomyces: Look for earthy, barnyard, or horse blanket notes, common in some reds like Loire Francs.
  3. Yeasty/Lees Contact: Describe as "bread-like," "chalky," or "fermented in bottle" for wines with a bready, kombucha-esque finish.
  4. Unfiltered or Pet-Nat: For cloudy, raw, and young wines with natural fermentation characteristics.
  5. Reduction: Terms like "struck match" or "smoky" can describe wines with subtle sulfuric notes.
  6. Specific Producers or Styles: Use references like "Rifermentati" for Italian sparkling wines or Brand Bros for low-filtered natural wines.

Instead of broadly saying "funky," describe specific flavors or characteristics you like (e.g., "bright with VA," "barnyardy Brett," "kombucha-like," or "yeasty finish"). Bring examples of wines you've enjoyed to guide recommendations.

Volatile Acidity

Volatile acidity is an element that hits hard on the nose. It generally gives way to vinegar-y flavors like nail polish remover, permanent marker, or paint thinner. And while it can be considered a flaw in certain wines when imbalanced, it can absolutely operate as an asset, too. If you like that kind of acetone kick (think: wines that “bite back”), it doesn’t hurt to mention as much to your server.

Oxidative

When a wine is exposed to air, a series of chemical reactions are triggered that can concentrate the color (if a wine is too oxidized, it can turn an eerie brown color) and spawn flavors that lean umami, savory, gassy, nutty, and even bruised-apple-esque.

Reductive

Unlike with oxidative wines, reductive aromas are created by limiting oxygen exposure during winemaking and bottling process as much as possible.The best way to detect reductiveness in a wine, however, is to look for notes of flint, smoke, matchstick and, dare we say, rotten eggs.

Barnyardy

Often caused by brett, which is a yeast endemic to the winemaking process, this is a great signifier for wines that are super intense on the nose, with aromas that verge horsey, manure-like, and hay-esque. Sure, that may sound vile…but we assure you, it’s not nearly as pungent as it sounds. Next time you take a whiff of something decidedly funky, look out for a certain air of barn animal. And if that sits well with you, the smell of actual barnyards may grow ever more appealing.

Hazy/Cloudy

In the realm of texture and color (rather than taste), hazy and cloudy can absolutely be helpful terms. For unfiltered, unfined wines, look for a quality that’s vaguely opaque, whereby the wine is shrouded/misty and thus likely to give off a more structured or dense mouth feel.

Crunchy

Also in the campus of texture, tactile words like “crunchy” can be super helpful. You’ll likely use this one to describe wines that are fresh and pronounced in their acidity and somewhat structural. In the metaphorical sense, picture ripe, green things that “crunch” audibly when you bite into them.

Glou Glou

Named for the sound emitted when one chugs wine directly from the bottle (glug-glug, but make it French), glou glou is a term commonly used for utterly “chuggable” wines. If you want something jammy, light, fruit-forward — easy-drinking, essentially — make this a go-to descriptor. You might also turn to terms like “crushable” and “porch pounder.”