Do you know that some wine tasters are able to tell what kind of grape was used to make a wine? What about the regions that it comes from? Yes, professional wine tasters would be able to tell you these things and more just by tasting the wine.
Even if such extreme knowledge about wine seems to be far fetch for you, you can learn how to taste wine and impress your guests.
Tasting wine is learning and discovering about this particular wine. The first element that will help you to know more about it is the label. Knowing how to read the label is essential to start with.
The label
Labels will usually tell you a great deal about the content of the bottle. The label should feature the year of the harvest, the grape kind used, the region where it comes from, it’s classification, the name and address of the producer, its alcohol level and if it’s a dry or sweet wine.
The label is the best information you can get about a wine before tasting it.
Tasting with your eyes
Wine is best drunk from a tulip shape glass which helps concentrate the aromas. Pour a small half of a glass and tilt it gently to have a good look at the liquid. You should see a clear wine free of any kind of deposits or dust. Whatever its color, white or red, a good wine should always be clear.
Testing with your sense of smell
Once you’ve poured your wine in a glass, give it a swirl to release the aroma and then stick your nose into the glass, but away from the liquid. Smell steadily and gently as if you were smelling a flower. The more you smell wine for testing the better you will develop a smell memory bank. Soon you will be able to recognize a wine from its smell.
Tasting with your taste buds
Now it’s time to taste the wine in your mouth. It might be news to you, but the tongue is not the best testing instrument in your mouth. The real testing happens at the very back of the mouth. This is why you might have seen wine tasters gargle the wine for a few seconds before spitting it out. Professional tasters do have to spit the wine they are testing in order to remain sober all through the day. As for you, if you are testing just a single bottle, you might want to just swallow.
You can also literally chew on the wine as if it was a piece of food and letting it coat your tongue. This will give you all the aroma of the wine; its acidity, its body, its sweetness and so on.
Testing wine may start as a fun game, but as you get better at it, you might become expert at it.