Creative Writing | Guide to Wine | Genealogy

Wine Tasting Guide

Although smelling a wine seems a straightforward action (no more difficult than smelling a flower or a pint of milk really), tasting it is more tricky, because different areas of the palate appear to respond in different ways to different types of flavour.

For this reason the basic principle of tasting is to swill the wine around your mouth like mouthwash to get as much of the wine in contact with as many of your taste buds as possible. Often it can help to aerate the wine by slurping a little air into your mouth through pursed lips. This can require practice. (If you get it wrong there's a danger that you'll splutter a mouthful of wine down your front.)

ASSESSING FLAVOUR

The basic aim of tasting is to try to judge: the wine's acidity, sweetness, how well the sweetness and acidity are balanced, bitterness, how long any of these qualities stay in the mouth (known by wine buffs as their 'length').

THE TOOLS

You will need: suitable glasses, still mineral water, paper labels (if blind tasting), water biscuits (if you are spitting) a large receptacle such as a Champagne bucket, a notebook and pen.

THE PROCEDURE

Everybody develops their own technique, so experiment until you find a tasting style that you feel happy with. But you might begin using the following procedure:

Hold up to a window (professional tasting rooms always have a good source of natural light for this purpose) and note the colour. Is it dense, pale or somewhere in-between? You might also want to judge the wine's viscosity, i.e. whether it leaves a transparent coating on the sides of the glass.
Next, swirl the wine around in your glass (this helps to release its aroma) and then lower your nose into the glass, taking a deep breath that will gather the full effect of the wine's aroma. Don't even think about moving to the next stage until you have fully explored the scent - or lack of it - provided by the wine.
Now sip a small amount of wine, running it all over your palate, sucking a little air in after it.
Either swallow or spit - a procedure that can take years to perfect (the ideal is a fine stream of liquid so precisely aimed that you could take out a fly at fifty paces).
Between wines it can sometimes be useful to clean the palate with water and/or a biscuit. You don't need to do this every time you try a new wine - just when you feel that you need to.

TAKING NOTES

There are plenty of reasons for taking notes, including the fact that they provide a record of wines that you have liked should you wish to experience them again. More important is the fact that note-taking forces you to focus on what you are tasting and to try to articulate your thoughts.

TO SPIT OR TO SWALLOW?

If you are of drinking age, you won't need any advice on this. Some people feel that they haven't really tasted a wine until they have swallowed - although there are no taste buds in the throat, so technically it isn't necessary. Others find that even a hint of alcohol can dampen their objectivity. One option is to spit when you are making an in-depth analysis and later in the evening to swallow. With time you will soon find your ideal method.


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