What Are Wine Legs?

If you’ve ever swirled wine around in a wine glass and noticed streaks, you’ve found wine legs. Wine legs, also known as fingers, tears, or cathedral arches, form on the inside of a glass after you move the wine around inside it. These droplets are due to alcohol and surface tension, which causes the wine to slowly descend from the side of a glass in distinct lines.

Are Wine Legs a Good or Bad Thing?

Many people believe that wine legs indicate the quality of a wine. They believe a high-quality wine would have defined wine legs, while a lower-quality wine would not. In reality, all wines feature some form of wine leg, as long as they contain alcohol.

Wine legs don’t tell you much about the quality of your wine. That’s why sommeliers generally test several factors alongside wine legs to determine quality, including color, taste, and texture.

What Causes Wine Legs?

Wine legs are caused by several different factors working together. These factors include your wine’s alcohol and sugar content, which can determine the length of the actual legs. The viscosity, or thickness, of your wine can also cause wine legs. Wines with a higher viscosity generally have a higher alcohol or sugar content, allowing your wine to coat the side of your glass more effectively.

To a lesser extent, the shape of your glass can also affect wine legs. Glasses with a narrower opening will allow for easier swirling, leading to more noticeable wine legs.

The Gibbs-Marangoni Effect

Wine legs are a scientific phenomenon that occurs when you swirl wine around a glass. They are a byproduct of the Gibbs-Marangoni Effect, a term used in physics. In this case, it occurs because the flow of wine along a glass causes tension between the alcohol and water content in the drink.

When it comes to wine, the Gibbs-Marangoni Effect plays an important role in forming droplets on the side of your glass. Wine coats the side of your glass as you swirl it, due to centrifugal force. Wine droplets then flow from a region of lower surface tension to higher surface tension, creating the gradient streaks you know as wine legs.

What Do Wine Legs Indicate?

The presence and definition of wine legs can help you better understand your wine. Wines with a higher concentration of alcohol tend to have a higher viscosity. This can create more defined legs that linger longer on the side of your glass. Slower-moving legs can also indicate a higher concentration of sugar in your wine.

These concepts are important to understand as you examine your wine. During a wine tasting, they can also help you understand which types of wine you might prefer.

One of the best ways to examine how wine legs are related to taste is through a wine of the month club. These subscription programs allow you to sample the best options from all over the world, whether you’re interested in premium wines or a single bottle per month.

How To Assess Wine Legs

As a first step when assessing wine legs, choose a wine option to examine, and then follow these steps: 

• Pour the wine: If you’re at a wine tasting, allow an associate to pour your wine for you. If you’re pouring it yourself, fill your glass until it’s about one-third full, by pouring it into a clean and dry glass.
• Swirl your wine: Gently swirl your wine around the glass until it coats the sides. This helps to evenly distribute your wine around the glass and promote wine leg formation.
• Observe wine legs: Hold your glass to a light source and observe how droplets form along the sides. Note their size and appearance, along with their speed of descent back into the glass.
• Communicate what you see: If you’re tasting wine socially, speak with others about your findings. This helps the group decide which wines to continue tasting.
• Taste your wine: Some people include tasting their wine as a step in wine leg evaluation. This helps you better understand the viscosity and length of the wine legs you observed.

The characteristics of your wine legs will tell you a lot about the wine itself. For example, the speed at which droplets descend suggests the wine’s alcohol or sugar content. Persistence on the side of the glass suggests a thicker viscosity.

Myths About Wine Legs

Wine legs are associated with a few notable myths. Let’s look at the truth behind each:

• Wine legs indicate quality. Many people still believe that wine legs indicate a high-quality wine. In reality, wine legs are simply a scientific phenomenon caused by the presence of sugar and alcohol.
• More droplets mean better wine. Some people also believe that the more droplets a wine leg has, the better the overall quality. However, the number of droplets in a wine leg doesn’t say anything about the wine’s condition.
• Look for more wine legs. One prevalent myth states that the more wine legs, the better the wine. This isn’t true. The number of legs does not mean anything in terms of quality.

Understanding these myths can help you navigate misconceptions during the buying process. It also allows you to help others when choosing, evaluating, and purchasing wine for your next wine dinner or social event.

Other Ways To Assess Wine Quality

Wine legs are hardly the only method to evaluate wine. When choosing which wine to purchase or consume, it’s important to consider factors that include taste, feel, and texture.

Here are a few other ways to assess the quality of your wine:

• Aroma: Smell the wine to gauge its aroma profile. Look for fruity, floral, oaky, or spicy notes that intrigue you. Ensure your wine is free from off-color odors.
• Sweetness: Different people prefer different levels of sweetness in wine. Note whether your wine is dry, off-dry, semi-sweet, or sweet in flavor.
• Finish: Evaluate the aftertaste after you swallow your wine. Take note of how complex the flavor is and how long that flavor lingers in your mouth.
• Appearance: Assess the color and clarity of your wine. This helps you better understand its age and the grape it was sourced from.

If you plan to store bottles of wine, it’s also important to note the wine’s ageability. Ask your wine-tasting specialist about the wine’s aging potential based on its structure, acidity, and source. If you participate in a wine subscription program, you can also ask your personal wine consultant for help with ageability.

Evaluating wine legs — and other indicators of wine quality — is a skill that comes with time. With more experience, you’ll learn to assess the complexities of a wine’s age, variety, and winemaking technique to determine which flavors and styles you enjoy most.