Wine - Tasting and Drinking

How to Taste a Wine

It's not an issue of snobbery. To best appreciate a wine, it should be properly sniffed and sipped. No gulping or chug-a-lugging when it comes to wine tasting, it's an art and it makes use of all our senses. See the colors, taste the flavors, feel the texture, smell the bouquet, hear that cork as it pops.

Pour Choose a large goblet then pour in a small amount of wine.

Swirl Gently swirl the wine by holding the base of the stem and slowly rotating in a clockwise motion. Be patient, it takes a while to master the art of swirling without spilling.

Hold Be careful not touch the bowl of the goblet. Keep your fingers low - on the stem and on the base. This is done to avoid altering the temperature of the wine and changing its taste.

Look Observe the wine as it rolls along and down the sides of the glass. Appreciate the designs.

Admire Hold the goblet up to the light. Note the shades of color as they refract through the glass. The wine should appear bold and bright, never dull or cloudy.

Swirl Again.

Inhale Gently, get close enough to the rim of the goblet so that you can sense the deep fragrances of the wine. Try to remember those aromas as you later drink the wine and compare it to other tastes.

Sip You're ready. Take a very, very small sip and leave it on your tongue. As it sits on you tongue - inhale, bringing more air into your mouth as the drop of wine is cupped in your tongue, filling your mouth with the taste.

Sip If you like your first taste, imagine how delightful the next sip will be. Sip again

About Breathing and Even Stinking

"Breathing" is an essential part of wine tasting connoisseurship. It allows air to interact with the wine so that the natural tastes of the grape open and become fragrant after being, literally, bottled-up for so long.
It is as simple as opening the wine before serving it - that's all that breathing entails.

Some wines, mostly reds like the Cabernet and Syra need to breath for 1 to 2 hours. Others, usually whites, need only 30 minutes breathing time.

Actually, there is a different term that is used when a wine breathes for only 30 minutes. It is called "stinking." A rather peculiar name for an elixir often referred to as the 'nectar of the gods'.

Allowing a bottle to "stink" is an absolutely essential procedure - even for wines that don't need to breath. That is, to insure a better tasting wine, no matter what you have chosen to drink, uncork the bottle and leave it alone for at least half an hour before imbibing.

Why? Mostly, because a stale smell grows in that tiny space where air is trapped between the cork and the wine. In addition, corks have their own natural smell that is almost never pleasant. True, we sniff corks to see if a wine is good or bad, but honestly, that is an affectation. The only time sniffing a cork is an indication of anything is if the wine is so strong and so aromatic that it overpowers all other smells. And that isn't necessarily an asset in wines.

So plan ahead. Choose your bottle. Uncork. Wait patiently. Allow the bottle to stink or to breathe. Let the unpleasant odors that may have developed escape before you pour the wine into glasses. Taste , pour and serve. And then enjoy.

Serving The Wine

Champagne, sparkling wine and white wine are best when served well-chilled. Red wine, on the other hand is best opened when only slightly cooler than room temperature.

Put white wine in the refrigerator at least two hours before you plan to open it. Champagne or sparkling wine can go in even earlier than that.

Red wine (really any wine) should not be kept in sunny areas, or on top of the refrigerator. Find a cool, dry place where the temperature remains fairly consistent year-round. Generally this means places like dry cellars and basements, as well as less obvious places, such as under the stairs or in ground floor closets. It is important not to disturb wine bottles too much before opening them. Some red wines have sediment which should be allowed to settle to the bottom. Sparkling wines should not be agitated if the server wants any of it to remain in the bottle after opening!

It's nice to have the proper glasses to drink from. Red wine glasses are wider at the mouth and rounder than white wine glasses to allow for swirling and sniffing. White wine glasses are generally taller and have longer stems to keep the wine cold longer. Sparkling wine glasses are typically much narrower, so that the bubbles last longer.

White wines may be served immediately after opening.

Good red wines will benefit from being allowed to "breathe" for half an hour. The idea is to get as much surface area as possible, to allow as much wine as possible to come into contact with the air, while not disturbing it too much. The process of decanting will allow your wine to breathe.

Decant wine by gently pouring it into another container. Not only does this provide the neccessary surface area, but any sediment present (most likely in very old or unfiltered wines) should stay in the bottle. If no decanter is available, pour off a half-glass 15-30 minutes before serving and let both the glass and bottle sit.

When pouring sparkling wines, wrap the bottle in a cloth napkin (clockwise, of course, darling!) for effect and to insulate the bottle from your warm hand. Tilt the glass, and pour down the side of it to minimize frothing.