(Wine Folly) A structured wine has high tannin and acid and is hard to drink. People say “stuctured” because they think that if you give the wine a few years, it’ll soften up and be yummy.
(Dr. Vinny) “structure” refers to the relationship of different components in wine, such as acid, tannin, alcohol and glycerol. It’s one thing to describe the body of a wine (how it feels in the mouth, like the difference between skim milk and heavy cream, for example), or how the acidity might make your mouth water. But it’s the relationships between these elements that together make up a wine’s structure.
Structure itself doesn’t describe the flavor, but it’ll give you some clue as to how the flavors of a wine will age: wines with good structure are more likely to age well, while wines lacking in structure are unlikely to improve in the cellar.
Residual Sugar (RS) This is the level of glucose and fructose (grape sugars) that are not converted into alcohol during fermentation. RS is most commonly measured in grams/liter. (Wine Folly)
