The actual tasting in wine tasting is only part of the experience and rarely tells the entire story of a wine's quality. To fully appreciate a wine and judge its character, you must also employ your senses of sight and smell.
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Seeing is Believing
Start your wine tasting experience by examining the color of the wine. Hold your glass up to a white background in a well-lit room and examine its clarity and depth of color. Quality wine should be impressive before you take the first taste.
Red wines, such as Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot, may range in color from purple to ruby to brick red. As red wine ages, it will lose some of its color and graduate to a brick-brown hue.
Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, and other white wines should have a light green, clear, straw yellow, gold, or even brown color. Sweet white wines are generally a deeper shade of yellow.
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Regardless of variety, a wine's color should be clear and intense and never hazy. In time, you will be able to discern grape varietals and winemaking methods based solely on the color of a wine.
Making Scents
In wine tasting, smell is often more important than taste. You may identify in the smell of a wine hundreds of substances either through memory or from recognition. The characteristics you are gleaning from a wine's smell are its bouquet, which refers to odors that result from winemaking decisions, and its aroma, or odors associated with the grape variety.
Swirl the wine in your glass. This will release the bouquet and aroma. Now smell the wine and take note of any associations that come to mind. Maybe a wine reminds you of pumpkin pie, or fresh cut grass, or supple leather. Remember these associations and use them to later identify and describe your favorite wines.
Taste of Heaven
The final step of wine tasting is the actual tasting. But don't just swill it down like an unshaven horseman. Quality wine should be savored. Sip it and hold it in your mouth, allowing the wine to roll over your tongue as you notice the texture of the wine. The best wines balance several characteristics, including aroma, acid, tannin, fruitiness, and sweetness.
Finally, swallow and notice how long the wine's taste, known as its finish, lasts. A good quality wine will have a finish that is clean, crisp, and lingers ever so slightly.
Now that you're well versed in the art of wine tasting, you're ready to begin filling your wine rack with some new favorite varieties.
