The Process of Wine Tasting

Wine tasting is an interesting skill to learn, it can be useful in life. Professional wine tasters take their job seriously, they have to describe every single little flavor they taste. People who just like wine can throw that level of seriousness aside and just have some fun with it. When you are tasting wines make sure that you understand why some wines are better and more expensive than the others. If you understand why, it will make your tasting experience better and more enjoyable. Tasting wine takes a while to learn what to do and what not to do. In tasting there is a certain order to follow. The order is to see, swirl, smell, and sip (which most of us know how to do very well already without any steps or directions). If you do not taste in this order or, if you skip a step you will not get the full taste of the wine. When you taste wine there are things you should remember. One of these things is to keep your fingers off the bowl of the wine glass, if your fingers are on the bowl it heats the wine creating a different taste than the original one. When sipping the wine, make sure that the wine gets all over your mouth. The wine must do this because there are different taste buds in your mouth in different areas, and to get the true taste all taste buds must taste the wine. The first step in tasting wine is looking at the wine, you can tell quite a lot about a wine by just looking at it. To examine the color of the wine, pour the wine into a clear glass and put it against a well lit white background. When looking at the wine keep in mind that the age, grape variety, and what type of wood the wine was aged in can all affect the color. In red wine, the colors vary from a deep purple, indicating that the wine is quite young, to a deep red, indication the wine is aged well. In red wine, there is no such thing as too much time. Time improves the wine. Red wine will age for many years and not spoil. Red wine gets lighter as it gets older. In white wine the colors range from green to yellow to brown. More color in a white wine means that it is aged more and has more flavor. When white wine is aged too long it turns brown. When white wine is brown it is a sign that the wine has spoiled and gone bad. When looking at the color of the wine always ask yourself, "How clear, dull, deep, or bright is the wine?" Another way to find out more about the wine from just looking at it is inspecting the rim color. To get the rim color, tilt the wine glass and if you look at the edge of the wine you see a different color. If the rim color is purple it means the wine is young, and if the rim color is an orange to brown it means the wine is old and mature. Looking at the wine is an important step in tasting wine. It gives you a backbone to the taste, looking at the wine gives you a preview of the actual taste of the wine. The next step is not as important as the rest, but still vital to the taste. The next step to do in tasting wine is to swirl. Swirling the wine tells you how much alcohol is in the wine, and the level of sweetness. Swirling the wine creates a good body of the wine. Legs are the droplets that come down the sides of the glass when swirled. When you swirl legs should appear. Good legs indicate thicker body and higher alcohol content or a higher level of sweetness. Swirling the wine can add to the preview of the taste of the wine. Smelling the wine is one of the more important steps in tasting wine, it is also the next step. Each wine has hundreds of different smells. It takes lots of practice to know how to describe the wine. Different people have different noses. Some people may smell different things in the same wine such as fruitiness, tanginess, or even bitterness. If you skip this step when tasting wine the next step, sipping will be affected. It is best not to skip smelling the wine. Right before you sniff the wine, make sure you slightly swirl the wine again.

Swirling the wine releases molecules that contain the aroma.