Acid.

It’s that bracing quality in a drink that makes your mouth water after you’ve swallowed. That lingers in your mouth and sortof bounces around in there. Think lemons, limes, grapefruits… and Coca-Cola.

You might be thinking that one of those things is not like the other. Lemon juice, yeah, I get that. Super acidic. You can taste it and feel it in your mouth. But Coke? Coke is delicious and refreshing and sweet. The opposite of what you think of when you say “acidic.”

(You may also be thinking, “What does this have to do with wine?” but trust me. I’m getting there.)

Coca-Cola is indeed a sweet — very sweet — beverage. A 12 ounce can contains 39 grams of sugar — nearly 10 teaspoons! If you ate 10 teaspoons of sugar, you wouldn’t feel refreshed, you’d just feel thirsty (and maybe a bit sick). So why do we consider Coke to be such a thirst quencher? Yep, you guessed it: acid.

Now consider the pH Scale:

The pH scale, which measures acidity, goes from zero to 14. Battery acid comes in at one. Plain old water is seven.  Coke? 2.387. Wow! So not only is Coke realllly sweet but it is also realllly acidic. Yet we don’t feel like our mouth is melting when we drink it. Why? Because all that acid combined with all that sugar has the magical effect of bringing the drink into balance. And here’s where we connect it back to wine — the same idea can be applied to the wine you pick out to order at a restaurant or to purchase at the store.

Virtually every great wine has good acid (and a lot of bad wines have none).  It makes lighter wines so refreshing and gives bigger wines backbone and balance.  It is also an integral component in making a wine food-friendly, because it cleans your palate and makes room for the next bite.

Really, acid is prevalent in nearly every drink that adults tend to enjoy.  Fruit juices have a good amount of acid. Coffee does as well. It’s why you may like a squeeze of lemon in your water and why you can drink way more margaritas than you likely should.  And it’s also why we don’t pound glasses of milk when we’re thirsty, and why we want one White Russian but maybe not more than that. Those lack acidity.

So next time you’re ordering or shopping for a bottle of wine, ask for one with good acid. If that word sounds too harsh for you, say “crisp” or “bright.” The wine shop clerk or waiter will understand what you’re getting at.

And here’s one more thing — don’t confuse the word “dry” with refreshing.  Remember the bit about Coca-Cola? For the same reasons as with Coke, sweeter wines with particularly high acid tend to be more refreshing than technically dry wines that don’t have much acid. Dry simply means zero, or almost zero, sugar. It’s a word that’s often misused, and it might not get you what you’re looking for. There’s actually a very good chance that you’ll find a glass of a high-acid wine that has a touch of residual sugar (say a Riesling or Chenin Blanc) far more crisp and refreshing than, say, a big, buttery, oaky Chardonnay.  Even though the Chardonnay is dry and the other is not.

Just remember, it’s the acid, not the lack of sweetness, that makes a wine crisp and refreshing.