tasting wine successfully
Tasting wine is very easy and can be done successfully in 4 easy steps.
1. Look
For a few seconds, take a notice of the clarity, colour and colour intensity of the wine.
Deliberately hazy and unfiltered wines are currently trending with consumers.
Colour intensity can be measured by tilting the glass at a 45° angle to see how far the colour extends from the core to the rim. Colour is the balance of RGB – red, green, blue.
2. Smell
Swirl the wine in the glass to release the aromas and take a short sniff but placing nose at the rim of the glass. What jumps out straight away?
Think about those different fruit groups. Citrus fruits or tropical fruits for white wines whilst red fruits and black fruits for red wines, and a combination for rosé wines.
Describing wine’s aroma can initially be overwhelming but a little practice and some awareness will certainly win over this complexity. Everyone can smell!
3. Taste
It is often necessary to take more than one sip of wine to describe flavour characteristics – sweetness, alcohol, acidity, fruits, tannins, body. “Basic characteristics to assess in a wine when tasting” provides some good guidelines.
So, when drinking a Sauvignon Blanc, the high acidity (that mouth watering freshness) on the sides of your tongue can be noticed, sweetness in a German Riesling will be detected by the tip of the tongue, and tannins from a Cabernet Sauvignon will cause a slight dry feeling to tongue and gums. Our tongues can also give us an idea of body; generally the higher the alcohol the more texture a wine will feel like it has.
A good wine will be balanced, this is where the characteristics are in good proportions to each other. Too much alcohol can be unenjoyable, but so can having too little fruit.
Finally, we must think about the finish. This is simply how long the flavours feel like they stay in the mouth after tasting the wine. Generally, heavier wines tend to have a longer finish to them.
4. Think
Do you like what you are drinking? This is really the most important stage, after all, wine is all about enjoyment as an ultimate conclusion.
So did you like it, and what did you like about it? What was the quality of the wine? Was the wine ready for drinking or does it need further ageing?
Interested in gaining deeper insights and judging wines like professionals do?
