The Six Stages of Wine Tasting

1. See
Start by holding up the glass and looking at the colour. White wines range in colour from clear to honey-coloured ato gold. Younger ones can alomost look green, while older ones turn golden-brown with age. Younger red wines will be shades of red and purple. Older reds will look brick red or reddish-brown. If a wine is cloudy, it contains sediment and should be decanted before it is served.

2. Swirl
The general consensus among experts is that eighty percent of a wine’s taste is in its smell. The way to release a wine’s aromas, also known as its bouquet, is to swirl the glass. Wine glasses are tapered slightly at the top in order to capture the bouquet after swirling. The ‘legs’ that run down the inside of the glass can be a barometer of the wine’s alcohol content. If the wine is thick and runs down slowly, it has a high alcohol content; if it is thin and runs quickly, the wine has a low alcohol content.

3. Smell
After swirling the wine, focus on the bouquet. You should be able to smell fruit or maybe even oak, depending on how long the wine spent fermenting in barrels. Try to identify what type of fruit you can smell. White wines often smell like apples, pears, apricots, peaches, citrus, or even fresh vegetables or flowers. Reds can smell like cherries, raspberries, balackberries, and currants, or like chocolate, tobacco, spices, flowers, or even leather. If a wine smells like vinegar or cork, there is usually something wrong.

4. Sip
Next, take a small sip and let the wine slowly coat your tongue. Different parts of the tongue pick up different flavours. Hold the wine in your mouth and inhale to aerate it. By doing so, you will be able to detect more of the fruit tastes and to sense wheather it is light or full-bodied, bitter or sweet. It is often a good idea to taste wine with food. For example, a bite of cheese will help smooth out the tannins in red wine. And if a wine doesn’t taste right to you on the first try, taste it again as the first sip is not always reliable.

5. Savor
If you will be tasting multiple wines, spit each wine out after trying it. After you do, see how long the flavours linger. The mark of a well-made wine is its finish and the way its flavours continue to reveal themselves. The taste will dissipate more quickly in a lower quality wine.

6. Summarize
What did the wine taste like? Does it have a nice aftertaste? Rinse the glass and taste something else. Keep note of what elements you liked so that you will have a better understanding of your tastes in the future.

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