What is Wine Legs?
Wine legs are the tears or droplets just above the inside of inner content. Often we call it wine tears but, in French – it is wine Streaks. Some people may endorse it as a significant indicator of quality. Quite often my finger goes with that. Yes, the quality indicator is just a myth.
Trust me, wine is a beautiful object with tons of mythology. If you know the thing properly, it will no longer be a tough job to distinguish between myth and truth.
Why does wine have tears? | The Science of Marangoni Effect
Wine is a fermented alcoholic beverage. The inner content is nothing just a mixture of alcohol, water, and aroma. As alcohol has lower surface concentration than water, it evaporates when it gets any chance.
This is the reason for not watching any tear or legs in an airtight bottle. Go and swirl an airtight jar, there will be no droplets beside.
Common characteristics of alcohol are to evaporate. In an open glass, the evaporation of alcohol begins when it comes close to air. After evaporation, it starts mounting beside the glass and goes down again due to the cause of gravity. The gravity comes into effect only when the density of leg is high. This effect is also known as the Marangoni Effect.
Can wine leg demonstrate quality?
The straight and simple answer is NO. wine tears cannot be a good indicator of quality. But, you can smell something else just after watching the wine legs and its density.
According to the Marangoni effect, the legs will flow down again when the density is high. Similarly, the quickest wine tear density denotes a higher amount of alcohol in it.
So, after swirling your glass this is a clever idea to see the tears just to ensure the volume of alcohol. If it is a full-bodied wine with higher alcohol, make the sip slowly to protect the burning sensation in the back of your throat.
An experienced wine and spirit journalist, I love watching the color of wine before I make my sip. I love when it catches the sunlight or when it attracts the candle. The silky appearance enhance my taste while tears help me to exaggerate the thrust.
(Off-topic) If you have not yet read our latest secrets of wine decanter, then you have missed a great thing.
Relationship between wine tears and Viscosity
As a wine tasting expert, I just need to tell here the relationship between viscosity and wine legs. Viscosity is a scientific term that tells the stickiness or thickness of a liquid content. In case of a wine, more alcohol represents more viscous nature of it. The more viscous nature, the more amount will be clinging to the side of a glass.
You also need to be very careful regarding maintaining temperature. Read our guide to the serving & storing temperature.
Also, spend a minute on getting the most useful wine serving tips, for which you do not need to be a comms.
Some recent publish, you may find it very useful:
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- The best wine fridge under $200
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