Wine tasting. It’s a fundamental part of enjoying wine but many of us get the basics wrong and some are too intimidated by it to even attempt it properly.
To get the full enjoyment from wine, and to really understand the complexities of the red wines and white wines we drink, we must learn to taste properly.
There are a great number of variants on how it can be done, but for the novice, there’s a simple process to be followed.
Wine tasting, when done properly, opens up a whole new world to the wine novice, and enables the wine connoisseur to decipher the often-complex aromas and flavours of today’s offerings.
Follow these five easy wine-tasting steps and see how they will quickly help you to get to know your wines better.
The environment
To really concentrate on the wine you taste, you should ideally have a quiet space with no distractions but the very nature of wine tasting as a sociable, group event makes this impossible most of the time.
Try to reduce the things that can impede your wine tasting experience. Make sure you’re not standing close to strong smells, such as perfume or food aromas. If there are other smells, move away from them.
Temperature is a big factor that can impede the quality – or indeed lack of quality – in a particular wine. If a wine seems too cold – cup the glass in your hand – and if it appears too warm, condition the glass by swirling some wine around it to cover all sides of the bowl.
Appearance
Whether it’s red wine or white wine, appearance and the technique you use to evaluate your wine is important.
Fill the glass to around a third full and then you can begin the tasting process. Firstly, you should look at the wine from different angles – straight down into the glass, tilted and up to the light.
This allows you to take in all the colours that the wine offers and in time you will then understand the saturation and density of what you are tasting.
Holding the wine up to the light lets you see how clear it is. As a general rule of thumb, the clearer the wine, the better it is likely to be. Cloudiness or dullness can sometimes point to fermentation problems in poorer quality wines although this isn’t always the case.
A tilted glass helps to decipher the wine’s age and weight. If a wine looks thin towards its edges it suggests it could be weak. Brown hues for white wine, and rusty for red wine, suggest the wine could be past its best.
Swirl
Why swirl? It’s a good question and there’s good reason to do it… scientific reason in fact. The process actually churns the wine, draws in oxygen and intensifies the wine’s aroma, or bouquet.
A gentle swirl is enough to start this action.
Pay close attention to the legs that form around the glass. The bigger the legs – sometimes known as tears – the higher the alcohol and glycerine content, which points to fuller wines.
Sniff
The bouquet, or aroma, of your wine gives you lots of information about the product.
To start with, a series of short, sharp sniffs and then a pause will let your senses take in the aroma.
There’s so much to learn in wine aromas that we will look at them specifically in more detail in a future blog. However, when taking in the bouquet, look out for different notes and consider what they highlight.
There are potentially thousands of subtle aromas in a fine wine but there are obvious smells that can be identified quite easily.
Of course, wine is made from a fruit so fruity aromas should be at the forefront of most good wines, although not always.
Other aromas, such as flowers, leaves and herbs, can all give good indications to the region the wine was produced in and the growing conditions.
Taste
All of the processes you’ve learned culminate in the taste. But what’s the best way to do it?
Take a sip of the wine and suck it as you inhale slowly. In less experienced company, you’ll probably get some funny looks but real wine connoisseurs know this is the best way to aerate the wine in your mouth.
This, obviously, is the most enjoyable part of the tasting process and it allows you to confirm if the aromas you were getting beforehand were accurate.
It also allows you to determine whether they are balanced, complex, harmonious or complete – a broad range of categories that we will examine in detail in a future blog.
Come along to the Lockett Bros store and put your tasting techniques to good use!
We currently have these stunning wines on tasting:
Logan Chardonnay, Orange, Australia
Meerlust Chardonnay, Stellenbosch, South Africa
Domaine Cordier, Macon Lochè, Burgundy
Eberle Chardonnay, Pasos Robles, California
Eberle Cabernet Sauvignon, Pasos Robles, California
Eberle Cotes du Robles, Pasos Robles, California
Meerlust Rubicon, Stellenbosch, South Africa
