Is “Easy Drinking” Wine’s Most Misleading Compliment?

How a quest for smoothness and broad appeal often replaces structure, tension, and character

The other day I was asked to recommend a wine that was “easy drinking”. It is a phrase we’ve all heard and often gloss over, but for some reason it stood out to me, in part because I had a hard time understanding why this way of describing a wine tends to be perceived as a compliment. It is a phrase that appears on shelf talkers, tasting notes and on restaurant lists as a kind of reassurance, or if you will, a promise that there is nothing in the glass that will challenge, interrupt or offend your sensibilities. It is a descriptor for wine that neither demands, nor wants too much attention drawn to the qualities of the liquid. Yet though it is usually meant kindly, it is rarely clear what, precisely, is being praised.

Usually, the term easy drinking does not give many clues as to the flavour of a wine, but rather signals an absence of friction. This involves softened acidity, smooth tannins, often without much extraction having taken place, and a lack of any sort of bitter quality. The…