SIMPLE STEPS TO WINE TASTING

Wine tasting is about analysing a glass of wine with all your senses. Combining sight, smell and taste together will give you a better understanding of the wine’s appearance, scents and flavours.

You don’t have to be a wine connoisseur to know how to evaluate a glass of wine. Following a few simple steps and tips will have you being able to identify key characteristics and different elements that the wine consists of.

Pour the glass and take a good look at the wine. Immediately the colour will give off some clues as to what type of wine you are tasting. Is it red, white or somewhere in between?

The first step is all about sight. Take the glass of wine and hold it against a white surface with clear lighting. Look for the depth of colour, clarity and brightness. Is the colour deep and saturated or subtle and pale? A red wine will appear more vibrant when it’s young and lose colour intensity as its ages. A white wine will range from a water white, pale green and yellow colour to a more vivid golden straw colour as it gets older. 

Tilting the glass and looking at the wine from an angle will thin the liquid towards the rim and identify even more characteristics. If the edge of the wine appears tawny and orange in a white wine and a brown, brick colour in a red wine, this indicates an older wine with some age. 

Give the glass a swirl, do clear ‘legs’ or ‘tears’ appear on the sides of the glass? Thicker legs will identify higher viscosity which correlates to higher alcohol or sugar content. The legs can also help you identify what sort of climate the wine was grown, warm or cool. Wine from warmer climates are riper, have higher alcohol, are more viscous and have thicker legs, although this is not always the case. Swirling the glass will also release an array of aroma compounds, which brings us to step two, smell. 

Step two is all about what you can smell in the wine. Smell is complex and sensitive and is often hard to identify specific aromas.

Give the glass another swirl, this time, putting your nose right into the glass and take a few short sniffs, exhaling through your mouth. Take your nose away and let your brain do the work. What can you smell? For white wines, think of citrus, stone and tropical fruits like lemon, peach and passionfruit. For red wines, think of red and black fruits like cherry, plum and blackcurrant. 

More aromas come into play with a more complex wine. Herb and floral characteristics like grass, honeysuckle and black pepper may be present. Earthy smells like soil and wet stones may also be displayed. Aromas from the winemaking process will come through the smell as well notes like toast, cinnamon and vanilla come from the oak barrels and portray certain woody elements. 

Step number three and you finally get to drink the wine. The taste buds on your tongue will register acidity, bitterness, saltiness and sweetness that you can’t get from the nose. Circulate the wine through your mouth covering all your taste buds. The sugars, alcohol, tannins and acidity make up the wines structure, and if in proportion these elements account for a beautifully structured wine. 

What flavours can you pick up? If you were able to identify specific smells, it is likely you will encounter similar flavours like floral and fruit. Sweet, sour, salty and bitter are the flavours that are detected by our taste buds. Is there any sweetness to the wine or is it a dry style? Does the wine make your mouth water? If yes, it’s likely very acidic. Does the wine have soft or harsh tannins? Tannins are molecules that make the wine astringent and give a drying and rubbing sensation on your tongue. The quality of the wine is generally indicated by the mouthfeel and the finish. How long all do the individual flavours last in your mouth and what layers of the wine are detected?

As you start to learn more about each element of a wine, pinpointing your favourite elements will become second nature. Do you prefer a wine with soft subtle tannins, a highly acidic wine or is a hint of sweetness more of your style? What ever your preference there’s sure to be a wine (or two) out there you’ll love!