Why taste wine?
Tasting wine instead of drinking it enables you to appreciate it's qualities, to gauge whether the wine is drinkable and to be able to identify aromas and tastes typical of certain wines so you can determine if you like them.
Wine tasting is a complex subject, so the more you know, the greater your understanding and the more likely you will enjoy participating. Good wine is one of the worlds foremost pleasures and understanding how best to enjoy this past time will increase your chances of enjoying this pleasurable experience.
Setting the stage...
The room should be lit with overhead lighting that is bright (not fluorescent tubes), so you can see the wine clearly through the glass.
Use clear glasses that are designed for wine tasting. The wine glass should narrow at the top to allow you to swirl the wine in the glass and to concentrate the aromas.
The room should be smoke free, airy and free from other smells that could distract from the aroma of the wine. It is advisable that no one wears perfume or aftershave on the morning of the tasting.
The tasting table should be covered with a white tablecloth to help assess the colour of the wine accurately. Provide dry bread so particpants can cleanse their palates between wine tastings.
Participants should come prepared with pen and notepads to make notes about each wine. A glass should be only about one third full for each wine tasting. Although swallowing the wine is acceptable, the alchohol content will affect your judgement and it is normal to spit the wine into the receptacles provided during the tasting.
Ground rules
Seven basic rules to help you get maximim benefit from your wine tasting
- Don't to drink water between glasses of wine as water rinses the mouth too clean, and can leave a residue of chemicals in your mouth.
- It's not necessary to rinse your glass between same colour wines.
- Do rinse your glass if you change from red to white wine, so as not to interfere with the colour of the white wine with the residue drops of red wine.
- Hold the wine glass by the foot or the stem, not the bowl of the glass. This is not snobbery. If you hold it by the bowl, you cannot see the wine, may leave greasy finger prints on the bowl and you will also heat the wine, which could change it's characteristics.