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 Even more rationale for why wine should be guest-of-honor at all your parties--wine-
tasting! If you find yourself enjoying more wine, you'll begin to develop a taste for
certain styles and form opinions about wine in general. After speaking with some of your
friends, you'll probably discover that they've developed their own tastes and opinions as
well. What could be better than inviting them over and tasting a bunch of wines together?
In other words, a wine party! People have been holding wine tasting for centuries, and a
good time will be had by all.
Appraisal starts with the appropriate shaped glass, the international XL4 tasting
glass is standard. The narrow top end of the glass helps contain the wine
while swirling to concentrate the vapors. The hand should hold the stem and the
glass should be clear (complete abscence of color) so that the color and clarity of
the wine can be assessed.
When assessing or appraising a wine we use four of our five senses; sight, smell,
taste, and feel.
Sight
You make two judgements when you look at wine. One is the color, both the
hue and the intensity. The other is appearance. From this it is possible to make
some judgements about the condition and the age of the wine. The colors of a
white wine may be water white, yellow, gold, straw yellow, amber, brown,
golden yellow, pale gold, or other. Aged white wines wil have typically deeper
yellows and golds. Red wines may be pink, orange, light red, tile red, brick red,
ripe plum and many other descriptions. Aging will show orange and browns.
Smell
The smell of wine can be divided into its aroma, grape derived odors, and the
bouquet, odors derived from the winemaking process. During the fermentation
of the grape many chemical compounds are made which produce odors that can
be recognized and described. The maturation of the wine in oak may also add to
the smell of the wine through vanilla, caramel and creamy type smells. The list of
perceived smells is endless and unfortunately not are all pleasant.
Taste
Of the four primary tastes three are predominant in wine tasting: sweetness,
acidity and bitterness. Associated with the sense of taste is the feeling produced
in the mouth. Alcohol in moderate concentrations can be perceived as sweet.
High alcohol wines may produce a warm or hot sensation. Dissolved carbon
dioxide can be felt as a fizz and astringent wines can cause dryness or puckering
in the mouth, Wines high in glycerol appear viscous and give a fatter or thicker
feel in the mouth. All of these sensations will lead to the overall mouth feel. A
balanced wine is one where all the components flil the mouth with a uniform
smooth enjoyable feeling. Balance is what the winemaker strives to achieve.
| 1. | To appraise the wine, the glass should be clear and one third full.
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| 2. | Tilt the glass on a 45-degree angle away from you with a white background so
the visual assessment can be made.
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| 3. | Swirl the wine in the glass several times so the volatile chemicals, those that give
rise to the wine's aroma and bouquet, can collect in the glass.
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| 4. | Smell the wine with 2-3 full quick sniffs. If you continually sniff the wine the
smells will become confused. Most people can only detect 3-4 different smells st
one time.
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| 5. | Make a written or mental note of the smells and your assessment of the wine's
aroma and bouqet.
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| 6. | Now take a generous mouthful, suck air through the wine, swirl it around the
mouth so as to cover the mouth with the wine and swallow.
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| 7. | Predominant tastes and odors are best detected with the mouth empty. As the wine
warms when swallowed vapors will rise up through to the nose, for further smell
detection.
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Eyeballing wine, swirling and sniffing and awishing ... it may look complicated or even
snobbish, but the traditional wine-tasting technique is actually based on common sense.
It's simply a way to pause for a moment, to stop and think, and to pay attention to the
ways that wine impacts on all your senses, from sight and scent to taste, aftertaste, and
the overall impression that the wine leaves behind after you've finished. Once you've
made the conclusion for yourself, what's more fun than comparing your resulting
opinions with your friends!
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