You understand how to consume wine, but do you really understand how to taste it?
Wine tasting is not really identical to drinking it. To discover the real flavor of the wine requires that you relax and focus on your senses of smell, sight, touch, & taste.
There are absolutely no wrong or right of how a wine tastes or smells. Our palate is really as unique and different as each person. Do not rush your tasting experience.
The Fundamentals:
Start having a clean wine glass. The rim of the glass preferably should bend inwards to direct aromas to your nose, and enable you to swirl the glass without spilling.
Holding the wine glass correctly: You will find there’s correct way and a incorrect way to hold a wine glass, and it also can make a difference. Don’t hold the glass by the bowl, just by its stem because the heat of your palm will quickly warm up the fluid.
Now pour just a little wine into your glass – an inch or even less is advisable. In case you are tasting various wines, start with the least heavy white wines very first and advance to the heaviest red wines. This helps maintain your tastebuds much more sensitive so that you can far better appreciate each wine within the sequence. A sip of normal water between wines may also help preserve your palate.
Sight:
Look at the wine : in daylight if it is possible for you.
The most convenient way will be to gently tilt the wine in the wine glass and then hold it up towards the light or maybe look at it towards a white or light background. What can you recognize?
Is your wine very clear or maybe more cloudy? The colour may vary in accordance with what wine it really is.
Red Wines: Red wines differ tremendously in colour. A younger red wine is usually a bright raspbeery like colour. You will notice hints of a reddish brown around the edges. An old red wine may very well be mahogany to a brick like in colour. As a red wine gets older, the red wine has a tendency to have a brick like colour.
Dessert Wine: Some dessert wines and particularly those which have been in oak barrels, are likely to be golden.
White Wine: White wines can vary from a light green to yellowish to rich golden brown and turn into more golden when they get older.
Swirl:
While holding the stem of the wine glass, carefully swirl the glass in small circles on a table surface for ten to twenty seconds enabling air to enter the wine.
The reason for swirling wine within a glass is simply to aerate the wine and free up vapors, evaporating at the sides from the wine glass, for you to be able to smell. When the wine coats the sides within the glass, it frees its bouquet.
Observe the streaks of wine while they roll downwards the inside of the glass. This may help you determine the actual body of the wine.
Smell :
Tip the glass up as well as stick your nose inside it and inhale gently. A few tasters state that you will get much more aroma simply by holding your nose one inch approximately above the glass right after swirling. They believe you catch a lot more than you’d if you put your nose completely into the glass. Test both ways to determine what works best for you. Besides that, your nose senses will get tired in a short time.
Did you already know that 80 percent of our sense of taste is in fact in our nose? The particular aromas can be very different in accordance with how far into the glass your nose goes. What exactly can you smell? There is absolutely no “correct” smelling technique. Some wine experts favor to smell by quickly inhaling 2 or 3 times. Many others prefer a single deep sniff or even smelling with just one nostril at a time.
At the top of the glass, the aromas are much more floral, fruity; deeper in the wine glass, they tend to be much richer. Try for you to identify the complete variety of aromas from floral to berry to spicy to woody … etc. Recognize intensity as well as appeal.
Sip and Taste:
This is the last step and really should be taken only after you have used your other sensory faculties. Sip the wine, allowing the wine spread throughout the tongue from the front to back and also side to side just before swallowing.
If you are feeling comfortable doing this, very carefully slurp a bit of air through your puckered lips. This can help to release flavour and scents. Evaluating the wine through taste should confirm the conclusions drawn from the look evaluation and also the smell evaluation.
At this stage you may either spit it out or just drink it, however make sure to experience the aftertaste (called finish). Professional wine-tasters do not swallow the wine, but right away spit it out (you’ll see spittoons for this specific purpose).
