Tasting Process

You wouldn't eat an entire cake to decide if you liked it, right? You'd take a bite, establish your opinion and then move on accordingly. When you do a "proper" wine tasting, it's amazing what a different experience you have as opposed to the taste you get if you just take a regular sip. For one thing, I know I've had wine that on first sip was fine, then it dwindled to the point that 1/2 a glass left, and I was tired of the taste.

Formal tasting allows you to capture a very full taste experience in only an ounce. In a restaurant where you could be considering buying a bottle for your table, they will usually pour you a tasting before you commit. You may also be tasting at a winery; in either place it'd be pretty awkward to have to keep asking for more :) And don't worry, the whole process takes around one minute to complete.

 One tidbit before we get started. Only hold your glass by the stem or the base. If it's handed to you by the stem, grab the base to receive it, and if the presenter holds the base, you grab the stem. Never hold it by the goblet part because finger prints or hand lotions getting on the glass may obstruct your visual account of the wine.

 In a formal tasting, we establish a sensory build up in anticipation of what we should experience when we get to the actual taste.

·                 1st: Hold the glass up to the daylight or over a white piece of paper. This will establish the clarity (no sediment or cork bits) and color of the wine. (The home-brew "wine" my grandpa used to bring up from his basement in the old 5star whiskey bottles would never have survived this step. Lol) The depth of color, or opaqueness (usually for reds), indicates the age of the wine. Deeper or thicker will taste darker. (What does that mean? Picture the difference between grapes and raisins.) 

·                 2nd: We get the "nose" of the wine. So don't be shy, stick your nose right in the top of the glass and inhale. Picture the things you pick up; for whites a common smell, or "note" is apple. For reds, it's common to get a "cherry" note. Now, to really establish the nose, set the glass on a table and swirl the base in a circle. Or you could hold it by the stem and swirl it in the air. This "opens the bouquet". Now smell it again. It will be much more pronounced. You can cut right to this step when tasting, but it's always neat to get the unopened comparison. Swirling the wine aerates it, evaporating a bit of the alcohol and creating sort of a flavour cloud in the air space of your glass. 

            ~    Tasting wine is about the air around the wine, along with the wine itself. We will experience taste sensations (sweet, bitter, full) on our palate, but the flavours of apple, cherry, grassy etc. are actually established in our nose. This is why it's hard to taste things when we have a cold. ~

·                 3rd: Swirling the wine also creates a liquid shelf around the inside of your glass. This is called the "robe". We will see drips forming from the robe and cascading down the inside of the glass. These drips are called the legs. The speed at which the drips form and run down the glass is a visual indicator as to how sweet the wine will taste. If the drips are long to form and run, the wine will taste sweeter. Quicker indicates a drier taste. Picture swirling water, with no sweetness of course, so it would wash down the sides quickly. Maple syrup however, would have very large, slow drips.

·                 4th: Finally the taste! You'll want to tip your head forward (if you don't, the wine hits the back of your throat and you'll choke on it) and take a sip of the wine, drawing a bit of air in at the same time as the liquid. Close your lips, then continue to draw air in, like a slurp. Don't worry in a wine tasting setting it's perfectly acceptable :) This is called "trilling" your wine. Next you chew it, quite literally. Chewing it coats your palate; you'll get sweetness on the tip of your tongue, sour/bitterness on the sides and back, and minerality on the roof of your mouth. Then you can swallow it, or spit it out, as you prefer. Spitting would be a way to be able to taste a very large flight of wines without becoming intoxicated :) 

Another mouth-feel we describe is the "body" or the weight of the wine. A good association to help understand this would be comparing wine to milk. Skim milk being light body, 2% being like medium body, and homogenized feeling full bodied.

Being able to experience or identify different characteristics in wine will help you to identify which types of wine you like. This comes in handy if you are in a wine store, to be able to say "I like dry, fruity, medium body.." etc. so you can start in a direction that is closest to what you are looking for.

Hopefully you will find practical use of this brief description, and it will enhance your wine tasting experiences and also your love of wine :)

~Cheers