Sure, everyone knows how to drink wine, but how about tasting wine? Let BARTENDER MAGAZINE teach you how the pros do it. Remember, tasting wine is an extremely personal experience involving your perceptions, and just like watching a movie, there are no “right” or “wrong” perceptions, only your perceptions.
THE FIVE STEPS FOR TASTING AND EVALUATING WINE
1. Looking 2. Swirling 3. Smelling
4. Tasting 5. Savoring
1. HOW TO LOOK AT WINE
Proper lighting is essential when evaluating a wine’s color. The best angle for viewing wine is from above looking downward at a slight angle. A white background is recommended because any color behind the wine you are viewing will influence your impression of that wine.
Look for a clear, brilliant appearance as this is a strong indication of good wine-making, storage and shipping.
2. SWIRLING WINE
The reason we swirl, is to aerate the wine. Aerating, helps a wine release its aroma or, bouquet. Hold the glass by the stem and gently make small, circular motions. You should notice the wine moving up and down the side of the glass in a continuous wave. Five seconds of swirling is enough, though young wines tend to be more “closed-up” and benefit with a bit more.
3. SMELLING THE WINE
Millions of hair-like receptors found inside the nose detect odor particles. More than 60 percent of how I judge a wine is based on a wines aroma. Smelling is done immediately after swirling. Bring the rim of the glass to one or two inches below your nose. Your inhale should be easy, consistent, and comfortable. What do you smell? Do you like what you smell? Use any words that you feel accurately describe the wine. Does the wine smell old, fruity, woody or sweet? Is the aroma smoky or toasty? If the wine smells fruity, what fruit does it remind you of? It may be apples, cherries, bananas, strawberries, or black currant. After a while you may begin to notice similarities with certain wine types, and that is when you will start to become a wine taster. You may discover Chardonnays have a scent of apple, or California Cabernet Sauvignons have similar scents of cherries.
4. TASTING WINE
Our taste buds are tiny receptors grouped on the tongue that responds to one of the four basic tastes: sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. There are no commercial wines that taste salty, so, there are only three taste sensations we need to concentrate on. It is the proper combination of sweet, sour, and bitter that we are looking for when tasting wine. When these tastes are in harmony, we have a balanced wine. Tasting also provides information about the body of a wine. Body, is the weight of the wine in your mouth. If you think of skim milk as light body, whole milk as medium body and half and half as full body you should get the picture
Raise the wine glass so that the wine slowly enters your mouth. (Approximately half an ounce is fine.) Now bring your lips into a small circle and, keeping the wine still, with your head tilted slightly downward, slowly draw some air in through your lips for a few seconds. You should begin to hear a gurgling sound and feel a slight motion of the wine in the front of your mouth. Now breathe just the air in, breathe just the air out then swallow. When you do this, you are actually aerating the wine and helping it release its flavors.
5. SAVORING \ SWALLOWING THE WINE
When we swallow, we are looking for the wines finish. The finish of a wine is the flavor and the length of time we taste that flavor once it has been swallowed. A wines finish is called either short, medium or long.
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Whichever category a wine’s finish falls into, that finish should always be pleasant, after all, a pleasant wine, means we have all been “DRINKING WELL.”
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