You’re at a blind wine tasting. A wine with a powerful nose. You swirl it gently in your glass. You taste it. And then you feel a raspy sensation on your tongue that quickly dries out your mouth and leaves a bitter sensation on your palate. If you’re familiar with this sensation, you’ve already felt it when drinking an over-brewed tea or… a raw artichoke. This sensation is called astringency.

Chemically, astringency comes from the property of proteins to complex under the effect of tannins. This is the tanning of proteins and glycoproteins rich in proline (an amino acid) that lubricate saliva. Simply put, it’s the property of certain substances to produce a sensation of contraction in the mucous membranes of the mouth.

The foundations have been laid. But is an astringent wine necessarily bad? While this may seem like a flaw, you need to look at the wine’s other characteristics (sugar, alcohol content and acidity level) to see if a harmony is being created. Too much acid accentuates astringency, while sweetness reduces it. Moreover, the fresher the wine, the less astringency there is.

Since astringency comes from tannins, the more tannic wines have a greater propensity to be astringent. Since a wine’s tannic composition is determined by maturation, white and rosé wines (which mature for no more than a few hours) have little tannin and are therefore almost never astringent. Aging in wooden barrels can also increase astringency, as it develops tannins, all the more so when the barrel is young.

In conclusion, astringent wines are most often young, tannic red wines. Decanting is recommended to soften the tannins and reduce astringency.