How to Taste Wine: Wine Tasting For Beginners

Beginners Only Need to Follow Four Essential Elements

Jul 2, 2008

There are four easy principles to use to make wine tasting simple. Tasting has a scientific process but with the basics, even beginners can be knowledgeable.

Sommelier, Louise Wilson, says "assessing wine is a systematic process but tasting wine doesn't have to be overly complicated or fussy. If we agree on basic terms, then wine tasting can be social and informative." Trained at the International Sommelier Guild ( www.internationalsommelier.com/ ) and teaching at Wine and Spirit Education Trust (www.wset.co.uk/), Wilson maintains that since wine tasting depends on the senses, it is personal preference. “Tasting doesn’t have to be an esoteric mystery if it follows key steps and is kept simple.” (interview, June 16/08)

It takes a sommelier several years to attain certification but an amateur vinosseur can learn enough of the science of wine tasting to seem knowledgeable quickly.

Wine Sight

The first act is looking carefully at the wine. Tilt your glass 45° and observe three factors: colour, intensity, and clarity. Generally reds lose colour with age and whites gain. So a young red will look purple and an aged one will be more garnet. Whites will appear a watery green to a golden yellow.

Wine Smell

The nose is an important organ to help distinguish taste. Swirl the wine and poke your nose into the glass and take short sniffs. For beginners, descriptive terms should be general rather than too specific. Given the wide range of perceptions, Wilson advises that it is sufficient for the inexperienced to distinguish between a smell that is floral, fruity or spicy rather than specific associations.

With more experience, a taster will recognize that a wine aged in American oak can smell of vanilla more than a French oak or there is a hint of chocolate or truffles. But to say it is Anjou or Bartlett pear can be a bit snooty. A young wine is said to have an aroma and an aged wine a bouquet.

Wine Taste

The tongue, not a perfect sensory organ, can detect sweetness on the tip and acidity on the sides but individual interpretations vary. Tasters are looking for length and balance. To have length, the flavour will last beyond the first hit, fading rather than disappearing quickly. Balance refers to tannins and acids, which are in all wines.

Tannins are naturally found in grapes, especially the skins and crushed seeds. High tannin content is 'hard' , giving a puckery taste and even feeling like the teeth are getting coated. Wine with too much acidity may be tart. Wilson says, "Tannin is a mouth-drying feeling; acidity is a mouth-watering sensation."

Overall Summary:

Wine tastings provide opportunities to practice summarizing wines. Most wineries have them and often wine shops, hotels and wine clubs will organize them too. The role of a wine tasting is to provide experience and make the process social. Comparing 2 oz. samples or ‘flights’ of wine can be organized in several ways:

Attend them with confidence, knowing that you use three senses and a half dozen agreed-upon categories to help you summarize.

The copyright of the article How to Taste Wine: Wine Tasting For Beginners in New World Wine is owned by James Ellsworth. Permission to republish How to Taste Wine: Wine Tasting For Beginners in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.