Wine tasting doesn’t have to be intimidating. Start your wine education using your senses in three easy steps. Tasting wine should be an intensly sensual experience. These basic guidelines will help you sharpen and use in a systematic way your senses of sight, smell and taste to better appreciate the infinite nuances of a good wine. Appearance We are very visual creatures and our first , instinctive approach to something new is a visual assessment. In a wine we can observe the color, transparency, fluidity and the fizz of sparkling wines. In the color look for the intensity given by the quantity of pigments, the tone determined by the aging and the brightness. The clarity and transparency are related to the presence of particles and can be assessed exposing the glass to the light. The texture is given by the content of solid particles and pigments in the wine. Only in sparkling wines we will evaluate the persistence of the fizz, the quantity and size of the bubbles. Smell First make sure there are no unwanted smells like cork or mold, then start looking for the desired characteristics of that particular wine. Look for the intensity (the quantity of perfumes we perceive first), the persistence and quality. At this point you’ll be able to perceive the fruity or floral notes in the young wines and and the spicy and woody flavors of the more mature ones. Taste Finally, with the taste you can appreciate the quantity of sugars, alcohol, acids, tannins and mineral salts. To better appreciate the balance, intensity and persistence of the flavor try to move the wine around in your mouth and then “chew” it before swallowing it. Some wines will give us “soft” sensations due to sugars or glycerin or “hard” impressions caused by the acidity. In some wines you’ll be able to taste the mineral salts or the tannins that will give an astringent, dry feeling to the mouth. A good balance of this sensations makes an harmonious wine. The intensity, persistence and quality of flavors will determine the degree of excellence of that particular wine. Finally the degree of evolution of the wine has to be considered. A mature wine is at its best, but keep in mind that the life span and time of maturation is peculiar to every single wine. Organizing wine tasting parties are a great way to share opinions, discoveries and enhance your wine education. Indulging in wine tasting will sharpen your senses and trying different wines will better your wine appreciation.
|
