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Wine Knowledge

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How to Taste Wine

Apr 21st, 2017 | Ellen

The act of tasting wine is a process of putting our sensation and tasting experiences into words. This helps us to communicate our tasting experience to other people who haven’t yet tasted the wines. This is an essential skill for people who are involved in wine industry. There are three senses involved in tasting wines, the sight, smell, and taste. So in this order, let’s start with what the sense of sight can reveal about a wine.

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Step 1: look at the wines appearance

By looking at the wine, this can give us some clues about the wines condition, color, opacity, age and even grape variety. To get the best look at a wine’s color, tilt the glass at an angle of 45 degrees away from you, against a plain background, a white tablecloth or a piece of white paper . In practice, this visual stage shouldn’t take more than 5 seconds.

Condition:

The clarity of the wine will reveal if the wine has a fault, almost all the wines we taste should be bright and clear, if the wine is hazy, its usually means it is suffering from some issue and will simply not taste very pleasant.

Age:

As white wines age they tend to change color towards more yellow and brown colors, increasing in overall pigment. Red wines tend to lose color, becoming more transparent.

Intensity:

First of all, red wines get paler with age, a very deep color in a red suggests that it is either very young, made from a thick skinned grape, for example, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz or Malbec and the maximum color has been extracted from the skin.

Alcohol and Sugar:

Wine legs can tell us if the wine has high or low alcohol and/or high or low sugar. The thicker and more viscous the legs, the more alcohol or residual sugar the wine has.

Other Observations:

Likely you will find some sediments in the wine bottle, if you do find some in your glass, you just had a bad sommelier who served the wine rather carelessly.

So, what are the particles you see in the wine bottle? We call these wine stones, these solids are precipitated by the maturation or storage of the wine, usually little crystals of tartaric acid. In red wines dyed dark red by the pigments in red wine, and in white wines like white crystals. Many wine fans are happy to see wines stones in the bottle, as this shows the wine is not over filtered and that’s a good sign.

Step 2: smell the wine – How to judge the smell of wine

Aromas reveal a lot about the wine, an experienced taster will be able to tell the grape variety, the maturation of wine, whether or not the wine was oak-aged, where the wine is from and how old the wine is. Well, this certainly involves lot of experience! However, for people who are purely seeking pleasure from wine drinking, just take a sniff to enjoy the fascinating wine aromas. We categorize the aromas of wine into 3 main categories.

  • Varietal Aromas or primary aromas: These are grape-derivative and include fruit-driven, herbal, and floral notes. An example is lychee aromas for Moscato grapes and green grass for Sauvignon Blanc
  • Aromas from wine making: come from the wine making practices. The most common aromas are yeast-derivatives and are most easy to spot in white wines, like the buttery aromas from Chardonnays, which went through an oak fermentation process.
  • Aromas from ageing: Usually in the bottle, or possibly in oak. These aromas are mostly savory: roasted nuts, baking spice, vanilla, autumn leaves, old tobacco, cured leather or mushrooms.

Swirl the wine glass:

The act of swirling your wine glass brings more air in tothe glass. This allows the wine to breath, encouraging more of the less volatile aromas to be expelled.

Signs to warrant alarm:

There are some common wine faults to watch out for, which are mostly due to bad storage conditions.

Corked:

A Corked or Corky wine usually lacks fruit and charm on the palate, this masks the fresh, fruity aromas with an unpleasant damp cardboard or musty smell.

Oxidation:

The cause of this is oxygen. A dried cork or a bottle opened for a long period will allow air to sneak into the bottle and cause this oxidation. This masks the freshness of the wine and you will often detect some volatile acidity, like vinegar in the bottle.

Step 3: Taste – How to judge the taste of wine

Now, at last you are allowed to get some of the wine into your mouth! It is often said that tasting is an entirely subjective matter; the sweetness, acidity, tannins and certain aroma compounds differ according to our sensitivities.

Sweetness: This is an indicator of how much sugar a wine contains, Wines range from 0 grams per liter residual sugar (g/l RS) to about 220 g/l.

Acidity: This is what causes the mouth to water, and its presence makes wines taste vibrant and refreshing. Its present in all wines, although the level in white wines is generally higher than in red. Certain varieties, such as Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc are typically higher in acidity. Cooler climates generally result in higher levels of acidity than warm climates. Acidity is very important in sweet wines, not enough acidity makes the wine sticky and cloying.

Tannin: In ordinary eating and drinking, tannin is most noticeable in tea. In wine however, it comes from 2 places: the skins of the grapes or the oak aging. Every grape variety has a different inherent level of tannin, depending on its individual character. For example, Pinot Noir and Gamay have inherently low-levels of tannin, whereas Malbec and Cabernet have very high levels.

Body: Just like people, wines have a weight, it’s sometimes described as mouth-feel, it is the sensation of richness, weight or viscosity. It is a combination of the effects of the alcohol, tannins, sugars and flavor compounds extracted from the skins.

The Finish: This refers to how long the desirable flavors linger in the mouth after the wine has been swallowed or spat out. We usually described as either a short or long finish.

Ground Rules and tips for tasting wines

  • To appreciate color, you will need some sort of white surface, here at CHEERS, please always use a tasting sheet for any kind of wine tastings.
  • Its distracting and you will be unpopular if you smoke or use strong perfume.
  • Smelly food and odours are a NO – it will interfere with the tasting process.
  • Always use the right wine glass for any kind of tastings.
  • It’s always smart to provide some salty snacks to enhance the flavor of the wine.

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