Grape Gossip, how to Taste Like a Professional

To read previous Grape Gossips, click here

Would you like to get more from your wine?, understand a little bit about what you’re drinking, why it’s priced as it is and whether it justifies £10 of your hard earned cash. Well I thought I’d pop down a few notes about why wine tasting, or just thinking about what’s in your glass, will enhance your drinking experience. This doesn’t mean that I get all poncy and serious, for me wine tasting is fun and pleasurable (unless it’s a final question in a wine exam and the difference between a pass or a fail!).

Personally I try not to let my inhibitions take over, I find the best thing to do is not worry what you think you should be saying/thinking or tasting…just taste without preconceptions. And don’t think that it’s only for the qualified or the experts, that’s rubbish as well. I believe wine tasting is a personal thing as well as a practised process. All you require is a palate and an imagination.

First things first, have you got the right tools?. I think there are certain items that enhance the experience. Good corkscrew…glasses (preferably clear and thin glass), spittoon? (well maybe not) and if you’re serving a number of different wines then don’t go for the fullest bodied first as the rest will be completely overpowered.

Pour out a smaller glass than normal (remember it is a tasting), especially if you have light coloured carpets and you’re trying this exercise with red wine, as the first thing you need to do is give the vino a bit of a swirl in the glass to ‘breathe’. Normally the wine will have been tightly locked away in its bottle for a number of months /years so it needs to find its feet when released, re-adjust to its new surroundings and have a bit of a stretch, by allowing the wine to breathe it will allow it to do all these things and you’ll have a different, and happier, wine at the end of the process.

Before you try what’s in your glass have a look at the colour, as a general rule of thumb whites will get darker as they age whereas reds will get lighter. Then smell it, is it an intense nose or delicate? Are the aroma characteristics largely fruit? Floral? Spice? And so on.

Then give it a taste, swirl it round the mouth so it reaches all sensory parts. There are loads of technical things to think about, so many that I could write another article about this, but overall just have a little think about it. Is it fruity – raspberries, red cherries or pineapples? Or is it more chocolate, coffee or vanilla? Think about dryness/sweetness, acidity, level of tannins (the things that dry your mouth out) Does it seem harmonious and in balance or is there one element simply overpowering everything else. For me a well made wine is well balanced between all its different facets. Does it linger lovingly in your mouth suggesting that it’s really rather special? But perhaps more importantly do you like it? Is it your thing? Don't worry whether or not you should like it, just simply whether or not you enjoy it! Have a think what you would enjoy eating it with or is it one to have with your mates after a long week in work, or on a Sunday before dinner..sat in the garden. I know it sounds a bit square but making some notes is a great idea – they will serve as a reminder if nothing else, they only need to be short. Once, at a long tasting session someone said to me that if you’re really struggling to write a note then just jot down three words that describe that wine – it’s a great idea as it completely forces you to focus on its main characteristics.

After our recent summer tasting customers came into the shop enthusing about trying something completely different and being wonderfully surprised by it. That is the best thing about tasting; experimentation and broadening the palate and at the same time enjoying every minute of it.