Drinking wine is one of the most enjoyable drinking activities, whether you are having a family dinner, out with friends, or even enjoying your alone time, watching your favorite movie or reading a good book. But sometimes, due to lack of experience, we miss out on important factors that affect wine, and they just fly over our heads without even noticing. This is why it is important to know how to taste wine properly, so that next time the waiter pours you a glass of wine and asks you if it is okay, you know what to do, other than the fact that you will look like a professional wine taster, and that’s pretty awesome. Wine tasting doesn’t need a certain set of skills and you don’t need to be a professional wine taster either, you just need to know what look for.
There are a few techniques, tricks, and accessories that will help you out when tasting different kinds of wine.
Observe
Surprisingly, you can tell a lot about the glass of wine that you are holding just by observing it; this step should not take more than 5 seconds. First examine the color, opacity and viscosity; the color should be a rich, deep dark color. You can examine the color by tilting your glass to the side, also make sure you observe the color in front of a white background like a napkin or a tablecloth in order to see the wine’s authentic color. Older red wines tend to turn brownish and have harmless dark red sediment in the bottom of the glass, but that is not a bad thing. White wines’ color tends to darken with age, but it should not turn brown, and most importantly the wine should not be either cloudy or murky in color.
Swirl
Swirling your wine glass is a key move to know more about the wine that you are consuming. Fist of all, swirling the will allow air to come in, which makes the flavors disperse and even out. Second of all, by swirling the wine you can tell how viscous is the wine. Viscosity, is how swiftly the wine slides down to the glass, if you notice “wine legs/tears” that means that it contains more alcohol or contains more glycerol, which means that you are consuming a sweeter wine, either way it means that the wine is more mouth-filling, denser, and riper than other wines without wine legs/tears.
Smell
Smelling the wine right after swirling it is definitely the best time to do so. Smelling the wine will help you check if there are any off odors, if you smell any that means the wine is either spoiled or has a chemical/biological imperfection. If it has a nail polish smell that means that the wine is too acidic. If it smells like burnt matches, don’t be alarmed, that is the product of bottling, which will fade eventually. If you notice a musty or an attic-like smell that means that the wine was improperly bottled and cannot be salvaged.
Taste
Take a slow sip of wine and let it linger in your mouth a bit, while doing so, expose that sip to all of your taste buds. Move the wine in your mouth, so that your taste buds can detect all the different tastes of the wine; notice the texture, and the weight of it on your tongue. An increase in texture indicates that the wine is richer in alcohol, and if it’s watery it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have a lot or enough ethanol in it.
After Taste
Wait and check for the aftertaste, see if you like the taste and if the taste has changed in your mouth. A good indication of quality wine is when the aftertaste lasts for a good 60 seconds or longer.
Accessories
Acquiring wine tasting accessories can make you look all fancy and professional, but that is not what they are only good for. Wine tasting accessories are almost a must have when it comes to wine tasting.
- Bottle Opener
A bottle opener might seem like an obvious thing to acquire, but you need to pay attention to how sturdy and reliable it is because if you get a poor bottle opener some parts of the cork will fall into the wine and that will effectively ruin the taste and the texture.
- Wine Bottle Stoppers
Most corks don’t fit back into the bottle, so getting a wine bottle stopper is important so you can preserve the taste and keep the wine’s scent.
- Decanter
A decanter is a must have, since it maximizes the surface area which will decrease the amount of time you gave to decant. It also allows the wine to breathe, which means more flavors for you!
- Aerator
The majority of wine drinkers are not familiar with aerators, so you may find yourself wondering what does a wine aerator do? To put it simply, a wine aerator is a simple and portable device that goes into a wine bottle or in a decanter. The aerator comes with a return air valve, rubber stopper, and a dual air chamber. It exposes the wine to air circulation, which means you don’t have to wait for your wine in the decanter; you can just drink it faster using the aerator.
- Wine Fridge
Whether you are wine collector or not, a wine fridge is very important to have, since nothing else will guarantee your wine ages gracefully like a quality wine fridge. A wine fridge is perfect to store all of your wine bottles, while both preserving the taste and the preferred ideal temperature for your bottles.
Grab a Glass
Drinking wine is both enjoyable and relaxing, so don’t stress over your wine tasting. Just make sure it is not murky, rotten, have a funny color or smell, and you should be fine. You can drink your wine with complementary food that will enhance its taste, and with your professional wine accessories such as an aerator or a wine fridge will definitely ensure that your wine still tastes delicious. Some tools like the decanter for instance, only enhances the flavor, so make sure you have these essential tools to enjoy your bottles of wine.