Wine Tasting Guide

Wine tasting can be both enjoyable and challenging.  If you are new to drinking wine, this is a good place to start.  This simple wine tasting guide will take you through the correct procedure for tasting wine.  There are three components to wine tasting: Sight, smell, and taste.  Here are the basic guidelines for observing these components.

Sight
Using a white background such as a napkin or tablecloth, tilt the glass at a 45-degree angle.  Observe the color and clarity of the wine.  A white wine will have colors such as green, gold, or straw colored.  A red will have colors such as deep purple, cherry red, or hints of brown.  Now swirl the wine a few times.  As it settles observe the legs that run down the glass; the thicker the legs generally means the thicker the body (described later).

Smell
Swirl the glass for 10 to 12 seconds then smell the wine; do this a few times to get a sense of the overall impression.  If it is a white wine, do you smell apples, pears, peaches, apricots, lime, lemon, grapefruit (these are some of the fruit characteristics of white wines)?  If it is a red wine, do you smell cherry, black cherry, plum, raspberry, blueberry, blackberry (these are some of the fruit characteristics of red wine).  There are many things you might smell; this is just a good starting point.

Taste
Now, it’s time to taste.  Take a sip of the wine and swirl it in your mouth for a few seconds before swallowing.  Think about the texture (also called body); is it heavy or light?  Light will have a thin texture, such as low-fat milk; heavy will have a thick and coating texture, such as heavy cream.  Now think about the flavors of the wine.  Is the wine sweet, fruity, dry, or somewhere in between. What fruit or other flavors (such as oak, vanilla, grass, cocoa, mint, and pepper among many more) are prominent.

Now that you have tasted the wine through these three steps.  Think about the overall impression of the wine.  Is the wine one you would enjoy without the accompaniment of other flavors, or would it taste better with a certain food?  Generally, if a wine is fruity or sweet, it can be enjoyed alone.  If a wine is dry, tart, heavy bodied, or acidic it would probably taste better accompanied by food.

This is a quick and simple wine tasting guide.  A minuscule amount of wine descriptions were discussed in this article.  As you taste more wines, you will discover more of the characteristics of certain types of wine. For more information about wine tasting go to “The Ultimate Downloadable Wine Tasting Kit”