Now I'm sure you have all seen it before. Someone swooshing wine around a glass, then sticking their noise into and having a quick taste. They then rattle of some descriptive words that you have no clue what they mean and you're left standing there watching and thinking WTF! Is this person from this planet?
I'm going to break down the tasting method for you and give you some insight to what all the jargon means in a way the everyday person can understand.
1 Colour
The first thing I do when I'm tasting is look at the color. All I'm looking for is some indicators of age. White wine goes deeper and more rich in color as it gets older, while red wine looses It's color and turns more maroon compared to a purple hugh when its young. I tilt the glass and hold it over a light colored surface like a white sheet of paper, table cloth etc etc.
2 Smell
Why do I smell wine? It offers a preview of what you might taste in the glass, as well as that you can also tell if the wine is off. To smell the wine I swirl it around the glass, this vaporizes the liquid and releases it's aromas. This also helps as the wine needs exposure to oxygen to help it open up or 'release' it's bouquet and flavors. At first I will smell from just outside the glass and then ill put my noise right inside the glass. I do this because you can pickup different smells. For example from outside the glass you might get an oak smell from which the wine has been aged in. From inside the glass you may get a floral noise which is the fruit itself.
3 Look
Next I like to look at the wine in the glass. What I'm looking at is its 'Viscosity' or the way the wine reacts or flows in the glass. From this you can judge it's alcohol content, wines that are more viscous are said to have 'legs' and are generally higher in alcohol. I do this by giving it a good swirl in the glass again. You will notice it will run back down the glass from highest part it reached when you swirled. It may run back down the glass quite quickly or slowly in lots of little lines or 'Legs'.
4 Taste
Down to the exciting bit taste! I like to taste by taking a sip then sucking some air through my lips, rolling the wine around my mouth and then swallowing. There are a few things you can detect or taste and I'll break these down into dot points to make it easier.
- Front palate - This is the first sense you get of the wine. The first thing you taste when the wine enters your mouth. Typically you will taste acid first
- Mid palate - This is where the more complex flavors of the wine come through
- Back palate flavors
- Tannin - This relates to the 'mouth feel' or texture of wine. you can detect this by rubbing your tongue along the roof of your mouth. If its course you would say it has big tannins or the tannins are rough. If it's smooth then you could say it has fine or smooth tannins.
- Body - This relates to the weight of a wine and is influenced by alcohol. I like to relate it back to milk because I think its something most people can relate too. If a wine is full bodied its like a full cream milk. Medium bodied is like reduced or low fat milk and light bodied is like skim milk.
- Acid - Acid adds sharpness or a crisp taste to the wine. How I like to detect acid is take a sip of wine and either spit or swallow. Then I tilt my head forward and let some saliva build up in the front of my mouth. Depending how much saliva builds up, that is an indicator if the wine is high or low in acid. So if lots of saliva builds up the wine if high in acid and the opisite if its low.
- Finish - Finish and Length go hand in hand. Finish is the last flavor / character you taste before you spit or swallow. The finish is what you will taste in length.
- Length - This refers to how long the taste stays in your mouth after you have spit or swallowed the wine. Some wine might disappear as soon as you taste it and you would describe that as quite short. Others might linger around for quite some time and you would describe this as a long finish. A longer finish is a sign of high quality wine. For instance if the finish is citrus flavors of lemon and lime and the wine has great length then those flavors will linger in you mouth for quite some time.
