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******************************************************************************** How to taste wine / How your senses work / Tasting practicalities ******************************************************************************** What to consider on the Nose when tasting wine. After you have checked all of the information to be gained from the appearance, hold your glass by the stem and give it a generous swirl. Swirling the wine in the glass before smelling increases the surface area of the wine open to air, allowing the aromas to escape. Take a sniff but don’t sniff for too long as this will saturate your sense of smell and give a dulled impression, it’s better to return to the glass as many times as necessary. Anything fishy? Firstly you need to consider whether the sample you have is as it should be, as there’s no point going on to taste a faulty wine. Fault reasons and their characteristics are covered in greater detail in the Complete Interactive Wine Tasting Course™ on freewinecourse.com How big is your nose? The first consideration is the intensity of the smell reaching your nose. This can give a few clues as to the origin and quality of the wine. A wine’s smell is made up of aromatic compounds lifted to the nose by alcohol evaporating from the wine’s surface. A wine with more alcohol will have a higher intensity, as will a higher quality example when comparing two examples of the same type of wine. The best way to judge how strongly a wine smells (how high the intensity is) is to try smelling it at different distances from your nose. The size of your nose makes little difference, rather how far the glass is from it!
Violets or rugby socks? Many aromatic compounds in wine are also found in other organic matter, giving rise to the fruit, floral, mineral, etc., descriptions we hear (perhaps a little too often) in tastings. Although there are accepted descriptions for aromas, giving terms to aroma and bouquet is more art than science as the sense of smell is subjective. Whereas most will agree on a wine’s intensity, few will agree on specific aromatic compounds as there are up to five thousand found in wine. An individual wine (a good one!) may contain traces of up to three thousand aromas, some to a higher concentration than others. So when assessing aromas and flavours you should be the judge of what you taste and build your own vocabulary. If you smell it, it is there! 
Occasionally very distinct aromas can be picked up, causing a taster to exclaim "That smells exactly of pineapple" or even "hamster cages!" Though more often they have to convey an impression of the wine, describing it as 'tropical' or 'musky' to imply a general sensation because the taste is more homogenous. Each grape variety has a set of aromas. These aromas will then differ depending on the soil in the vineyard, the climate and winemaking practices, and they will generally be more concentrated in wines of higher quality. Remember, if you smell it, it is likely it is there! Classical flavour descriptions for all the major grape varieties can be found in the Instant or Complete Wine tasting courses on freewinecourse.com. ******************************************************************************** How to taste wine / How your senses work / Tasting practicalities ******************************************************************************** What to consider on the palate when tasting wine. Structure When tasting wine on the palate you should think about the structure of the wine before the flavours. The structure is the Taste and Sensation of the wine detectable by the mouth. Descriptions of structure are less subjective than those of flavour, so they form the basis for any sensible tasting note. Structure can be broken down into two areas: Tastes - Two of the four basic tastes, sweetness and sourness are considered (saltiness and bitterness don’t generally apply). Sensations - The feel of the wine in the mouth - Its Body, Astringency, Temperature, Balance and Length. Once the elements of structure are considered you can then let your senses loose on the flavours on offer!
Tastes Sweetness Take a small amount of wine into your mouth and roll it around to coat the entire palate. Only leave the wine in the mouth for a few moments before spitting, as leaving it for too long will quickly saturate the senses. When first tasting for sweetness, compare the sensation of sweetness to those given by different fruit juices. The tip of the tongue is more sensitive to sugar, so when you taste to notice sweetness take a little wine into your mouth, and immerse the tip of your tongue for a second before spitting. Then make the following comparison. 
Acidity Consider acidity as the wine’s backbone. It acts as a preservative and anti-oxidant, helping to prolong the life of a wine. Acidity is the sour sensation generally most noticeable on the sides of the tongue, as this is where we are most sensitive to sourness. Again, when beginning to assess acidity, comparisons with fruit juices are a good benchmark for judging levels. When you take a sip of the wine, allow the liquid to fall to the sides of your tongue before spitting and then make a comparison with the following juices. Wine Tasting Guide: Now let's look at the sensations that the mouth detects. Sensations Body Body refers to the overall richness or 'weight' on the palate. The body is determined by the amount of dry extract a wine has (Tannins, Acidity, Glycerol, Residual Sugar, along with other compounds, including flavour, all contribute to dry extract). Simply imagine taking the water away from wine and dry extract is what you’re left with. Exercise - Taste a glass with 100mls of water and notice its weight on your tongue. Then add one quarter of a teaspoon of sugar to your glass. Once the sugar has dissolved, roll the liquid around the palate and feel how viscous it is – what 'weight' does it have. Ignore its sweetness. Notice how the weight changes as you add more sugar. Wine Tasting Guide: Tannins Only if you have a glass of red do you need to consider tannin. Although white wines do contain tiny amounts of tannin, the tasting term is solely applicable to reds. It is the astringent component in the wine, lending body and richness, and is an essential natural preservative. Tannin requires time to soften and lose its astringent nature - more so when in larger quantities. As a rule lighter wines with less tannin age more quickly and are ready to drink earlier. The majority of fine red wines with good ageing potential will be astringent in youth (and sometimes even unpleasant to drink), only showing their true qualities as the tannins break down and soften. Action - The roof of the mouth and the sides of the tongue are more sensitive to tannin. So, take a little of your (red) wine onto your tongue and rub it against the roof of your mouth. After you spit, notice how dry the sensation is by again rubbing your tongue onto the roof of your mouth. The harder it is for your tongue to move (the drier the sensation), the more tannin there is present in the wine. Compare it to the sensation of rubbing the roof of your palate with tea, which also contains tannin. Wine Tasting Guide: The texture of the tannin is often described with finer red wines. An immature red may have tannins that appear hard, only becoming softer with age. Alcohol An indication of the level of alcohol can be apparent when looking at the wine in the glass. Wines with a higher level of alcohol will have more concentrated legs (the droplets that form on the sides of the glass), though when considering alcohol on the palate, assess the warmth of the wine. Balance Balance has nothing to do staying upright after a few glasses. It is the overall harmony of all of the wine’s components. Imagine a set of traditional scales, put a little too much of something onto one pan and the scales become unbalanced. With wine, if one factor is overly apparent, e.g. acidity, it will detract from the pleasure to be gained and the wine will be unbalanced. Conversely, if there is insufficient acidity in a wine, freshness will be lost and other factors, such as sugar may become overly noticeable. Fine wines for long-term ageing (five years and over) may appear unbalanced in youth, as tannins could appear too high in a good red before it softens or acidity might appear sharp in a fine white prior to the flavours developing to balance the wine. The art is in anticipating how the wine will develop - this comes with a little practice. Your wine is likely to be balanced unless there is a fault or the wine is young. Wine Tasting Guide: Length A wine’s length is determined by how long the flavour (aromatic compounds) lingers on the palate. It is an indication as to how high the level of each aromatic is as well as how many different aromatics there are. A wine might have high levels of one aromatic compound giving a strong flavour initially, however the flavour will fall away quickly if the wine has a limited amount of different aromas as the palate becomes de-sensitised to the initial one. Higher quality wines are more often greater in length, inexpensive wines generally being shorter on the finish. Wine Tasting Guide: Some wines are noticeable for considerably longer, up to half an hour or more in rare cases. However, I have generally had my next mouthful before putting this to the test! Flavours 
The term ‘flavour’ describes the aromatic characters detected by the olfactory bulb in the nasal cavity. The aromas have travelled there via the back of the palate when you take a mouthful of wine. As with describing aroma and bouquet, communicating the flavour of the wine is subjective and should be done sparingly to convey an impression, rather than act as an absolute. And don’t be afraid to say what you smell or taste in a wine, even when in wine circles. An experienced taster will be always be interested to learn what you detect - only a misinformed snob will disagree with you. Again, if you taste it, it is likely that it is there! Classical flavour descriptions for all the major grape varieties can be found in the Instant or Complete Wine courses on freewinecourse.com. ******************************************************************************** How to taste wine / How your senses work / Tasting practicalities ******************************************************************************** © All text and images remain the copyright of Taste of the Vine. No unauthorised copying is permitted.
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