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Wine Tasting
By Daniella, Fri Dec 9th
Wine Tasting Component I: Look The first step you have to undertake in wine tasting is visual. 1. Fill up the glass up to 1/3 of its volume; never fill it morethan half;
2. Hold the glass by the stem. Initially you may find this toopretentious but there are good reasons for it: а) by doing it this way you can actually observe the winein it; b) this will keep your fingerprints off the bowl; c) the heat from your palm will not change the temperature ofthe wine. There’s a good saying by one of the greatest Frenchwine lovers, Emil Painot: Offer someone a glass of wine and youcan immediately tell whether he/she is a connoisseur by the waythey hold the glass.” Even though you may not think of yourselfas a connoisseur, you could still learn how to hold the wineglass. 3. Focus on the color intensity and the transparency of theliquid. a) the color of the wine, and more specifically its nuances, arebest observed on a white background. b) the wine’s intensity is best judged by holding the glasswithout slanting it and looking at the liquid from above; 4. Next comes the swirling of the glass. This can also seem toopretentious or even dangerous if you have a full glass or awhite top. But this movement is important since it prepares youfor the next step in wine tasting – the Taste. The easiest wayto swirl the glass is to place it on a table or other evensurface, and to swirl your hand while holding the glass by thestem. Swirl hard and have the wine almost touch the rim of theglass. Then stop. The wine leaves tiny traces with irregularshapes on the inside of the glass. Some “experts” then read themwith as much zeal as coffee-tellers. The truth is however, thatthey are just an indicator for the quality of the wine – themore alcohol a wine has, the more wine traces it forms. What does the color of the wine tell us? The wine’s color tellsus many things about its character. First, the color shows thegrape variety. Let’s take two popular varieties as examples –cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir. Cabernet’s grapes aresmaller, with a thicker and darker skin than those of pinotnoir. As a result, the color of wines made from cabernetsauvignon is usually described as violet to dark while the colorof wines made from pinot noir is associated with ruby. Second, the color is influenced by the climatic conditions. Ahot summer and dry fall result in ripe grapes, with a dark,intense color. A cold summer and rainy fall will produceundeveloped grapes with a lighter color. Third, wine-making practices also have an influence on the colorof wine. For red wine, the grapes are fermented with the skin.Since the coloring agents are in the grape skin, and not in thejuice, the longer the process of maceration, i.e. the longer theskin stays with the juice, the darker the wine color will be. Fourth, the process of wine aging also has an influence on thecolor of wine. The young red wines are rich in coloring agentsand that makes their color denser and fuller. In the course oftime chemical reactions take place in the bottle and a sedimentis formed at the bottom. The wine’s color gets lighter and isoften described as brick or amber. Let’s go through an example: you pour yourself a glass of redwine and after carefully observing it, you notice a full granitecolor, good density, and not so good transparency. Whatconclusions can you draw? Well, you can safely say that the wine is: - from cabernetsauvignon grapes; - from a Southern region; - relatively young;- from a good yield; - that the wine-maker has gone for a goodlong maceration. If you know the wine, compare what you know with what you see:maybe the wine has a very full color and the yield has been bad–
this speaks of a good wine-making technique; or maybe the wineis too pale for its age – this speaks for undeveloped grape orpoor wine-making technique. Wine Tasting Component II: Smell The second wine tasting component is smelling and inhaling thewine’s aroma. Concentrate as much as you can and smell the wine,swirl the glass, and smell once again. The stronger the aromas,the stronger the impression. Most of the wines, especially themore delicate and the older ones develop their aromas only after“being walked around” the glass. There is no consensus as to theexact technique of whiffing. Some say do two or three quickwhiffs, others prefer one single deep whiff. The goal of whiffing is to inhale the aroma as deeply aspossible so that it gets into contact with our sensory nerve andhence, with the part of the brain that is responsible forregistering, storing, and deciphering sensations. The spot wherethat takes place is extremely sensitive: a cold or an allergymight completely block even the most intense aromas. With enoughpractice and concentration, you’ll learn how to extract themaximum from different aromas and how to interpret them. The vivid connoisseurs love to concoct different aromas. “Darkchocolate!” says one. “No, that’s more like pepper,” claimsanother. “Tea leaves, tobacco, and mushrooms,” adds third. Arethey joking?? Probably we don’t quite realize it but nowadays we are exposedto so many different smells that we find it difficult to findwords to describe all the complex aromas that a glass of winecan offer. Like color, a wine’s aroma can tell us a lot aboutits character, origin, and its history. Since our sense of tasteis limited to only 4 categories (sweet, sour, bitter, and salt),the wine’s aroma is the most informative part of our sensoryexperience. So take your time, sit back and contemplate thearoma! Like the perfume of a loved one or the smell of freshlybaked bread, a wine’s aroma can evoke memories of times andplaces that we cherish. Wine Tasting Component III: Taste This is the best part of wine-tasting. You might be enchanted bywine’s sparkling color or mesmerized by its aroma but it’sactually drinking the wine that the whole thing is about. Maybeyou are thinking that drinking is the easiest part – after allwe start drinking from a glass from a very young age and we keeppracticing for a lifetime. However, there’s a real differencebetween just swallowing liquid and conscious tasting. Here, justlike in all good things in life, the difference is in the righttechnique. The appropriate technique can make sure we get thebest out of the whole experience. 1. Still under the influence of the aromas you’ve inhaled instep II, take a sip of the wine. Don’t make it too big or toosmall. You need just enough to walk the wine in your mouth andnot have to swallow it just yet. Let wine uncover its secrets.For reference, you may keep good wine in your mouth for 10 – 15seconds, sometimes even more. 2. Walk the wine very well in your mouth, ensuring it toucheseach part of it. This is important because our tongue, palate,the inside of the mouth and our throat each detect differentaspects of the wine. For many years, it was believed that the tongue has differentareas each of which is sensitive to a particular taste – sweetfor the tip of the tongue, sour for the sides, bitter for theback and salty for the whole tongue. Today we know that all thetastes can be felt with the whole tongue, only there’s a “blind”spot in the middle of it which is not sensitive to any taste.Another important step in wine tasting is being able to tellone’s impressions of the wine. “Astringent”, “elegant”,“fruity”, “flat”, “young” are only a few words of the winevocabulary you’ll need to amass. About the author:The author invites you to visit www.wines-resource.com
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