The Laughing Wolf

How To Taste Wine

I decided on a more literal food for though item for today: how to taste wine. The notes I post most Sundays are my interpretations, and some have asked how to do a proper wine tasting. So, I thought I would share my thoughts on the matter.

I was very fortunate to do a number of very educational tastings at The Wine Bank in San Diego a few years ago. At those tastings one can learn how to taste, what to look for, and try a variety of interesting wines. To truly appreciate the whole, consider the components

First, look at the colour and the clarity. While there are some wines that should not be clear, the majority of what you are going to deal with every day should be clear. It used to be that clarity was a good indicator that the vintner was doing things right, while cloudy, murky, or wines with particles floating in it indicated that corners may have been cut and conditions during making and aging were less than ideal. This could indicate a bad wine, or it could indicate something that might make you blind. Today, it most likely means that vintner has done things right, including having a good knowledge of filtering/cold filtering.

The colour should indicate something about the wine. Very pale, almost clear wines for example, can indicate both a light wine and one that is delicate or has a single strong component. The richer the colour, the more robust it is likely to be. Ports, for example, are clear yet so rich in colour as to be very dark. None of this is an absolute indicator, but it serves as a guide. If you get a Chardonnay, for example, that is a very dark colour you may want to proceed with caution.

Once you have examined the colour and clarity, smell the wine. Take a whiff as it is just as it was poured into the glass. What smell or smells first hit your nose? What follows? Are there small smells, or notes, that show up later? Usually, this first sniff is dominated by one particular odor, but other notes can still emerge.

Now, swirl the wine in the glass. Smell it as you swirl, and then once you stop. How has the scent changed? Have new scents emerged? If not, the odds are it is not going to be a great glass of wine. The scent should be complex, a symphony if you will.

Appreciate it as a whole, but take it apart too. Do you smell fruit? If so, what types of fruit? You can smell a variety of apples, grapes, berries (blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, etc.), plums, pears, lemons, limes, grapefruit, and more. You can smell earth and minerals, tobacco, chocolate, jams, flowers, and vines. When you smell these odors, try to narrow them down a bit to to identify the specifics, such as Granny Smith apples, dark chocolate, mission figs, etc. When people talk of tobacco they rarely mean as in a cigarette – they mean a tobacco barn or something similar. To get a better understanding of this flavor, find a tobacco barn or get with a good cigar store that can let you smell the major types of tobacco. Look for spices such as white pepper, black pepper, red pepper, cinnamon, cassis, cardamom, cloves, nutmegs, basil, dill, and other common spices and herbs. Look for all the elements.

Now, taste the wine. The human tongue is an amazing thing, and an extremely sensitive and sophisticated sensor. As the wine enters your mouth, look at how it feels and tastes at the tip of the tongue, the body, and along the sides. How does it feel in your mouth: full, so-so, or weak. How it “fills” your mouth speaks volumes to a wine.

Repeat a similar process as with smelling: break it down to the components. Draw out the individual flavors and look at how they are put together. Often, flavors can differ from the scent, so seek out those difference and appreciate them. For example, a white wine may have a buttery taste that does not appear in the nose (smell), or a red wine may have spices that show up at different times and different parts of the tongue.

Run some air through the wine to see what new flavors come out. This can be done with tact, but it is crucial to releasing more flavors and things that might be hidden.

Now, consider it as a whole flavor like a meal. Have all the flavors come together? Has it lived up to the nose and colour? Do the different parts complement each other in a positive way?

Finally, how does it finish? Does it leave a bitter taste in the mouth? Sweet? Cloyingly sweet? Sour? Or does it provide a nice finish that fades slowly out? Do any new flavors or concepts show up on the finish? How does it taste in your mouth a minute or three after you swallow?

In a truly good wine, everything should now come together as a whole. The scent, the taste, the mouthfeel, and even the colour should combine to produce a symphony within the mouth.

As a final thought, consider that much of life can be treated as a glass of wine. If we take the time to appreciate all the individual parts, the whole can be appreciate anew.

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