How to Taste Wine
Evaluating Sight
When learning to taste wine, we must begin with sight. Sight can give us a lot of clues about what type of wine we are drinking, and is the first thing sommeliers (or wine professionals) evaluate before moving onto smell and taste.
To start things off, once wine is poured, wine enthusiasts will hold their glasses at a 45 degree angle over a light colored surface. This allows us to get a really good look at the wine from the center, which will be deeper in color, and the rim, which may have a varying color.
Color is a much bigger indicator in red wine, as varying skin thicknesses and aging/fermentation processes truly come into play. For example, Pinot Noir is a thin skinned grape. In turn, it will be lighter in color and typically yield a truer red. On the other hand, Cabernet Sauvignon is a thick skinned grape, and yields a deeper, purple colored wine.
Aging processes can also give us key insights into which wine we are drinking. For instance, a wine that has a bit of age on it, think 5+ years, will start to lose some of its color. Additionally, it will likely show a orangeish / rust color around the rim. A lot of grape varietals age better than others, and it isn't highly likely that we'll see a gamay with a ton of age on it. Perhaps a barolo.
Evaluating Smell
Like sight, we first need to start with the basics. When evaluating the smell of a wine, first hold the glass just below your nose and take a light whiff to judge it's initial smells. Sometimes it is good to take notes here, as smells in wine tend to develop as the wine blooms. After judging the initial smell, we can give the wine a light swirl or two. This goes back to the blooming that I just mentioned. Swirling the wine opens up the aromatics a bit and releases compounds that may have not been present before.
Now, in terms of evaluating wine aromas, there are several different broad categories we can sort of lump our evaluations into. Firstly, intensity. One of the easiest initial smells to get from a wine is the smell of alcohol. Judging by alcohol levels in smell, we can make some pretty cool assumptions about the wine. For instance, Spain notably produces wine with a high alcohol content. If a wine has a strong smell of alcohol, it could be from Spain.
Fruit is another aroma we look (or smell) for in wine. When evaluating fruit smells, ask yourself if it is red fruited or dark fruited. Also, is the fruit smell fresh or ripe, or dried? All of these assessments can point to what grape the wine is made from or even where it is made. New world wines are typically fruitier that old world wines. Light skinned grapes commonly are red fruited, and thick skinned grapes are usually dark fruited.
Wines also may give off herbal or spice smells. Notes in this category may include black pepper - which is a common smell in Syrah from the Rhone Valley in France.
Earthiness is another huge component in the smell of wine. These aromas also offer more clues as to where the wine came from. For examply, wines from Burgundy and Champagne will commonly give off aromas of mushroom.
Finally, if a wine has aromas of vanilla, coconut, chocolate, warming spices, or tobacco, it is likely to have been aged in oak. Different oak barrels impart different smells and flavors into a wine. Wines aged in American oak tend to have more coconut and dill aromas, whereas French oak gives wine vanilla aromas and warming spice smells. Let it be known that not all wines are aged in oak, and a lot of American oak is actually used in Europe.
Evaluating Taste
When you taste a wine, first make sure to give it a good swish around in your mouth before swallowing. Wine enthusiasts do this to evaluate how the wine feels on their palate / mouth. Mouthfeel can be a key indicator in evaluating taste.
Firstly, when evalating taste, you'll begin by assessing the level of acidity in the wine. Acidity, in short, is how sour the wine is. High acidity makes your mouth water, and makes wines have a ligter, and tart flavor. Low acidity in wines will taste round and smooth.
In red wine, we can also taste for tannins. Tannins are what make your teeth feel like they're wearing sweaters and will grip the insides of your lips and teeth. Tannins come from grape stems and skins, and thus a thicker skinned grape (back to Cab Sauv) will have higher levels of tannins than Pinot Noir, a thinner skinned grape.
Alcohol in wine, like most other drinks, is evaluated in taste by the way it feels when traveling down your throat. Alcohol is key in adding to the body of a wine.
Bringing all of these traits together, we can assess the body of a wine - or how bold it tastes in your mouth. Body can be light, medium, or full.
Tasting wine also brings the aforementioned aromas together. As we know, smell and taste go hand and hand. So, if a wine tastes like some of the smells that you (hopefully) wrote in your notes, then that will be a key indicator that your nose was not playing any foul tricks on you.
Final Thoughts
After evaluating sight, smell, and taste in wine, this is your chance to sum of what you have just tried. What was your overall assessment of the wine? Was it dark fruited, jammy, oaky and bold, with gripping tannins? Or was it light, delicate, acidic and refreshing?
I have just walked you through the process of tasting a wine, but you might ask, "Well wouldn't I just know by looking at the label?" You most certainly are correct. I have actually just walked you through the process of blind tasting wine. Sommeliers often blind taste wine for a multitude of reasons. For starters, blind tasting helps a wine drinker develop and train his or her palate.
Additionally, blind tasting practices are utilized when tasting new wines even if we know what the wine is. This helps us tp truly evaluate the quality of a wine. For example, if a wine is presented to you as a classic red Burgundy, but it has no mushroom or earthy aromas, has flabby (non-present) acidity, and tastes rather jammy and dark fruited, you would be able to tell that this wine was not good.