wine tasting tips

8/9/2019 Wine Tasting Tips

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Wine Tasting Tips

The Basics

Start with a clear wine glass. The rim of the glass should bend inwards to help funnelaromas to the nose, and allow you to swirl without spilling on your $50 tie. Never holdthe glass by its bowl, only by its stem.

Now pour a little wine into your glass. An inch or less is best. If you taste several wines,begin with the lightest (sparkling wines, roses, then light whites followed by full-bodiedwhites) and progress to the heaviest (light reds to more full-bodied reds followed bydessert wines). This will help keep your taste buds more sensitive so you can betterappreciate each wine in the series. A sip of water between wines can also help preserveyour palate.

First notice the color of the wine. It often helps to hold the glass up to light or hold itagainst a white background, like a white napkin. The color can give you a clue as to theage of the wine. White wines generally gain color as they age. Red wines lose color. Thatis, young red wines are more red or burgundy while older wines tend to show a hint oftawny brown around the rim. Regardless of age, the colors of wine are just fun to see,ranging from pale yellow-green to ruby red to brick red-brown.

Swirl the wine a couple of times by moving the glass in a circular motion. Swirling isdone to aerate the wine and release vapors, evaporating from the sides of the glass, foryou to smell.

Then put your nose right over the rim of the wine glass and breathe in. Take note of thewine's aromas and bouquet. Then sip, letting the wine spread across the tongue from frontto back and side to side before swallowing. If you taste a number of wines -- in a winerytasting room, for example -- your host will usually provide a large container for you tospit out the wine instead of swallowing. It is not rude or gross. Everyone in the wine tradeis accustomed to the swirl-sniff-sip-slosh-and-spit routine. No one wants an intoxicatedtaster or --worse -- an intoxicated driver.

The bottom line is that a good wine should always give pleasure. It should smell good,taste even better, and be smooth and satisfying by itself and/or with whatever you'reeating. Simple as that!

Yashwant Kumar N. | IHM Chennai


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Wine Tasting Journals

Taking notes is a good idea. Wine journals are available on this site and elsewhere to jotdown tasting notes. This will help you remember your likes and dislikes over time. It canalso be helpful in learning how to describe the sensations you're feeling. A wine journalcan be used to track how a wine is developing, for example, if you buy a case of a

particular wine and open a bottle periodically every six months or every year. Finally,you can share your tasting notes with others.

Wine Tasting Notes and Wine Evaluation

Wine tasting notes are usually made to help you evaluate a wine to see whether you likeit or to evaluate how a wine is progressing in aging. But what kind of notes do you wantto make? What are you looking for when tasting a wine? Here are a few pointers,although there are no hard and fast rules.

1) Nose, bouquet, aroma, or fragrance:These are all terms that describe how the wine smells to you. Does it remind you of a

flower scent? Then it can be called "floral". It may be "grassy" like a freshly mown lawn.Or it may come across as fruity, like a cherry or strawberry or melon might smell.Imagine yourself in nature and see if the scent is something growing around you, likeeucalyptus. Or imagine yourself in the produce section of your local supermarket. Doesthe wine make you feel like you're standing near a bushel of pears or oranges? Or does ittake you somewhere else in the grocery store, i.e. reminding you of nuts, chocolate,coffee or butterscotch? Or it may just smell like grapes! Write down whateverassociations, if any, you sense. If it helps to write down "Smells like vinyl car seats on ahot day" then write that down. The basic idea is to help you remember the scent.

Some varieties of wine grapes are known for their aromatic aromas. Viognier, forexample, usually has a very floral scent reminiscent of exotic flowers like gardenia,freesia, or jasmine often with a hint of ripe peaches or apricots. Chardonnay, on the otherhand, is often described as appley, nutty, toasty, and sometimes pear-like or evenpineappley depending on where it is grown. In general, winegrapes have a tendency topick up the flavors of the soil and whatever is in the surrounding environment as theygrow in the vineyard (terroir). So you may encounter the scent of roses, jasmine, violetsor eucalyptus -- and it will not be your imagination.

Anything that tastes moldy or like a chemical is an off-odor. These are BAD odors thatusually mean the wine has undergone some undesirable chemical or microbiologicalchange. Forget that wine! Dump it.

Sometimes you will find that a wine doesn't have a nose or bouquet at all. It can still be agood, very drinkable wine -- albeit most award-winning wines have both a nice bouquetand great taste.

What's the difference between aroma and bouquet? Aroma is present in the grapes and inthe wine from the time it is first made. Bouquet is an additional, pleasant characteristicthat develops only in the bottle, many months or years after bottling.

http://wines.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?word1=terrior&word2=&word3=http://wines.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?word1=terrior&word2=&word3=


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2) Tasting the Wine

Tasting for Sweetness - The first thing you will probably notice is the relative sweetnessor dryness of the wine. This is determined by the amount of natural sugar in the wine. Isit pleasant or overbearingly sweet, i.e. cloying? High alcohol content also makes wine

taste sweet.

Tasting for Acidity - Another sensation you will notice almost immediately is the tartnessor acidity of the wine. Just think of the difference between grapefuit juice and water.Acid may sound harsh but it is very important in making wine taste crisp and fresh. Ifthere is too much acid, the wine will taste bitter and unpleasently sharp. If there is notenough acid, the wine will taste flabby and flat, like day-old beer in a glass.

Tasting for Tannin - If you are drinking red wine, you may also notice the tannins in thewine. Tannin is a chemical that comes from the stalks, pips and skins of red grapes. Ittastes astringent and "mouth-drying", and makes your mouth "pucker". There are many

kinds of tannin. Some tannins taste bitter. You're probably familiar with tannin if youdrink strong black tea. Tannins are most noticeable in young red wines. Over time, aswines age, tannins "soften" and give the wine a certain full-bodied weightiness that isvery enjoyable. (Tannin is also found in the bark of trees, where the taste protects thetrees against insect infestations.)

Tasting for Alcohol - Alcohol, of course, is found in all wine. A moderate amount ofalcohol in wine adds "sweetness" to the taste. If the alcohol is too high and out of balancewith the tannin and fruit, and so on, then the wine will feel hot in your mouth --like adash of Tabasco-- and difficult to drink.

Tasting for Fruit and Varietal Characteristics - The more tasting you do, the moreacquainted you will become with the characteristic flavors of the major varietal grapes.With experience, it becomes easier to discern the flavors of the various varietal grapes --Riesling, Chardonnay, Sauvignong Blanc, Merlot, Zinfandel, Pinot Noir, CabernetSauvignon.

The question is how prominent the fruit flavors are in the wine. Young wines are often"fruity". Fruit flavors are usually considered a positive component in the quality of thewine. If you can't smell some kind of fruit in the wine (cherry, raspberry, peach, melon,mango, pineapple or whatever), then it is not a fruity wine.

Fruit is often confused with sweetness but they are not even related. Sweetness in wine isdetermined by the amount of residual sugar left in the wine after fermentation. Dry wineswith very low levels of residual sugar and no discernable sweetness can taste very fruity.Sweet wines can taste fruity or not. That is, 'fruit' may be present or absent but it hasnothing to do with the sweetness of the wine.

Tasting for Body - Body is a tasting term referring to viscosity, thickness, consistency, ortexture. A wine with "body" often has higher alcohol or sugar content than other wines.



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Tannin, also, is a major component of what we call "body" in wine.

A good way to comprehend the feeling of "body" or "weight" in wine is to think of milk.Recall the difference in "mouthfeel" between skim milk, whole milk, and heavy cream.Wines are usually classified as "light-, medium-, or full-bodied".

Tasting for Aftertaste - This is the sensation that lingers in your mouth just afterswallowing a sip of wine. Aftertaste is important in wine tasting because it can reveal anextra attribute or a fault. Sometimes certain flavors become noticeable in the aftertaste,i.e. chocolate "in the finish". A long, pleasant aftertaste, where all the components of thewine are in balance is a sign of quality. On the other hand, an aftertaste is undesirable insparkling wines and champagne which, ideally, should be crisp and clean with nolingering aftertaste at all.

Overall Assessment - When the aftertaste is gone, ask yourself what your generalimpression is of the wine. Do you like it? Do all the components seem to be in balance?

If you think the wine (especially young red wine) is too astringent, consider that it mightimprove and mellow or "open up" with age. Or is the wine ready to drink now? Whatkinds of food might go nicely with this wine? If you want to assign it a score of your ownchoosing, go ahead.

Wine and Food Tasting Tip:Here is a tasting tip from a long time friend and wine connoisseur. Set out a variety offoods to try with your wine(s), i.e. salami, cheese, seafood, cake, chocolate, pickles, etc.First, take a sip of the wine and taste as above. Then take another sip along with a bite offood and chew. You'll find that some foods go with the wine and some don't. Ideally, thewine and food together should form a 'sauce' that is delightful and better tasting thaneither the wine or the food alone. This is the mark of a successful pairing.

Confused? Wine tasting is harder to describe than it is to do. We suggest just tasting asmany different wines as possible. Taste, experience, remember, and above all, enjoy!



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Now how to read wine labels:

Reading a wine label can be intimidating. If you've ever seen a shelf full of Germanwines, for example, you might have stared in confusion at the 1998 Freiherr Heyl zuHerrensheim Riesling Wrmser Liebfrauenstift-Kirchenstck, Rheinhessen, Trocken, not

knowing where to begin deciphering it. "Too much information," as the saying goes. Theopposite situation exists, too. How much can you glean from a label that simply says"1997 Sassicaia"?

Most New World wine labels are relatively easy to read. In the United States, Australia,and Argentina (to take three examples), most wines are called by the grape variety theycontain. Look for Chardonnay or Shiraz, or Malbec and then go from there. Theselabels should also contain at least a minimum of information about where the grapes weregrown. This geographical identification is called the wine's appellation: Napa Valley,Barossa, and Mendoza are all examples of appellations. If the name of a specific vineyardis also provided, then the wine is considered a vineyard-designated wine. Other

designations, such as "Reserve" or "Late Harvest," add information that is more specific.In Europe, the situation is more complicated. French and Italian growers havetraditionally labeled wines by geographic origin rather than by grape variety. Theconsumer simply has to know that white Burgundies are made from Chardonnay, or thatred wines from Chianti are blends based on Sangiovese. The names of specific towns,districts, or vineyards (some of them famous for centuries) are often used on Europeanlabels. To tangle matters further, across Europe the way in which wines are labeleddiffers radically even between France's Burgundy and Bordeaux, for example so adetailed analysis is too complex to get into here. If you have questions, consult a goodwine guide, or ask your wine merchant for help.

You may wonder why there isn't one standard way of labeling wine. It would certainlysimplify things, but every wine is a product of its history and terroir the combinationof soil and climate that makes a wine unique. To standardize things too much would denythe richness that makes wine so fascinating. These days, however, the influence of theNew World has started to rub off on the Old. Blended wine may now be given a simpleproprietary name, such as the Sassicaia I mentioned earlier. Wines from the South ofFrance and from Tuscany, to take two examples, are sometimes labeled by grape variety,making their labels less cryptic.

Deciphering labels is part of the fun of learning about wine. The more information youhave, the better you'll be able to appreciate the differences between grape varieties,between regions, and between wine makers' personal styles.

Next time you see a puzzling wine label, think of it as a challenge and an

invitation to enjoy what's inside the bottle.


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