Cranberry in WTNs?

I have found that I taste a lot of cranberry in more acidic red wines like Pinot Noir or some Chiantis...but I rarely ever see it in a tasting note. Is my palate not picking up a the correct flavor, maybe like blackberries or raspberries instead?

Maria,

I find cranberry in Barbera d'Asti; partly the flavor, partly the acidity (which I love).

There is no 'correct' flavor in wine.

What Oliver said.

Cranberry is one of the highlights in the sparkling rose from Gratien & Meyers. I also get it once in a while in a cru Beaujolais.

What Oliver said.

I pick up cranberry in some wines. Mostly Pinot Noir. Also pomegranate.

I think with most of us, our taste impressions are dependent upon the taste repertoire with which we are familiar and comfortable.

The wider our tastes range, and the more adventurous and experienced we are with tastes, the better our repertoire.

Until very recently in this country, cranberry for most people meant that canned jelly stuff you had once a year with turkey and stuffing. Then it meant cranberry juice cocktail. Now it means a lot more than that, as we're seeing more cranberry tastes more often, so we can more readily bring it up on our palate memory chart.

I would say that (and I'm speaking waaaaay generally here) cranberry-ish smells and flavors are more likely in tart and acid-driven wines, much less likely in heavy, full-bodied, and tannic structured wines, or heavily oaky wines. But part of that is likely because cranberry itself is light-bodied, tart and acid driven, so it figures.

I mention cranberries in some Pinot Noir notes and also recently in a note on 2005 Domaine Ott, Les Domaniers de Puit Mouret, Cotes du Provence, a rose' or blush wine.

This reminds me of the first organized wine tasting I attended. It was at a bar in Davis called Mansion Cellars back around 1984 or so. The owner of the place put together a merlot tasting that my girlfriend and I went to. Might have been 10 of us there, mostly neophytes. I was very intimidated by all of the descriptors people were using and said little, but I remember one of the attendees mentioning cranberry in one of the wines. The owner's response was, "Wow - that beats my strawberry all to hell!"

One of those odd things that's stuck with me for the last 22 years.

Mike