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What do you need to know?
Wine is a very complex and multifaceted drink. Wine is full of nuances, and its consumption includes an appreciation of all that nature and the winemaker have put into wine. Experienced wine tasters are able to distinguish the subtle nuances of smell and taste, they can tell you what feelings each wine will evoke.
Wine tasting tips
Wine should not be tasted after eating foods and drinks that affect the taste and leave a long aftertaste. For example, they include coffee, chocolate, cigarettes and tobacco smoke, candies with menthol and liquor, etc. Only bread has almost no effect on the perception of wine.
When tasting wine, its organoleptic characteristics are evaluated: color, smell and taste.
The tasting room must be clean, free of strong foreign odors, including the fragrance of flowers. The room should be illuminated with sufficiently bright, but diffused light.
The common table is covered with a white tablecloth, but by no means multi-colored. Samples are placed on the table for tasting.
Tasters dress neatly and discreetly, do not use strong-smelling perfumes and cosmetics. The air should not be dry, but somewhat humid (humidity 75-85%), which contributes to a better perception of odors.
The temperature of the wine being tasted is important. The average values for champagne is 7-9 degrees; for light dry wines (10-12)°С (for whites) and (10-14)°С (for reds); for strong wines (16-18) ° С; for dessert and liqueur wines (18-20)°С.
As tableware, a classic tulip-shaped glass wine glass with a long stem is used, in which the walls of the glass are slightly narrowed at the neck. The glass should be of plain glass, colorless and transparent (in order to appreciate the color of the wine), but in no case faceted, crystal or colored.
wine tasting process
Wine is poured into the glass to 1/3 of the glass.
At the first meeting, the glass is brought to eye level and the transparency and color of the wine are assessed.
Signs of wine disease are uneven color, stripes and turbidity.
Some aged collection wines may not have bright clarity (unlike younger wines), but rather be somewhat dull. The presence of small crystals of tartar is also allowed.
For red wines, clarity and color are evaluated against a white paper sheet. The glass can be tilted. If you rotate a tilted glass or twist a straight glass, then traces of wine in the form of smudges will remain on the walls. The French call them “wine legs”. It is believed that the longer the legs stay on the walls of the glass, the better the quality of the wine (although this assessment is not indisputable). And wine legs speak about the strength of the drink.
Final wine evaluation
After a visual inspection of the wine in the glass, they proceed to the evaluation by smell (evaluation of wine by smell).
In this case, the correct temperature for drinking wine is important. If the wine is too cold, then the bouquet is barely noticeable or not at all; if the wine is too hot, then the evaporation of aromas is too fast, they mix and it is difficult to distinguish them from one another.
A bouquet is called a bouquet because it is a whole set of constantly changing aromas that gradually appear one after another under the influence of temperature. To fully evaluate them, you should first evaluate the still wine, and then slightly manipulate the glass: tilt, twist.
Professional tasters even “get” their nose into the glass, evaluate the aroma, then slightly manipulate the glass, as if playing with it, then sniff the wine again, and again get their nose into the glass.
The intensity and complexity of the bouquet speaks volumes about the quality of the wine.
Ordinary (young one-year-old wines), as a rule, have a monosyllabic smell.
Aged expensive wines, and especially collection ones, have a very complex, multifaceted bouquet.
To describe the smells and bouquet of wine the analogy of smells is used, for example: floral, fruity, fruity, vegetable, spicy, pungent, etc. (The same applies to the taste of wine).
The disadvantages of wine include unacceptable smells: moldy, musty, acetic, acetone smell, etc.
The last wine test – a taste test
A small portion of wine is taken into the mouth and held. Professional tasters, as it were, “chew” a portion of wine. You can try to draw in air and blow it through the wine. In the mouth, the wine heats up, which gives off aromas that are captured by the sense of smell (the areas of the tongue can perceive only four tastes: sweet, salty, sour, bitter). Therefore, when you have a cold, wine should not be tasted.
The final virtues of the wine are revealed in the mouth. Good wine (not necessarily aged, maybe ordinary) should be harmonious, well-balanced in taste. Also, the drink should be balanced in acidity, sugar content and astringency; and harmonious in color, smell and taste. Good aged wines leave a long aftertaste, and the more complex and varied it is, the better the quality of the wine. By this indicator, you can determine the elite wine masterpieces.
Astringent, tart taste of wine indicates an excess of tannins (tannins); the aggressiveness of the wine indicates an excess of acidity (the opposite is fresh wine); watery (not thick) wine produces little or no extractives (the opposite is velvety wine). According to the taste, wine is evaluated: fresh, full, harmonious, etc.
After the mouth test, professionals spit out a portion of the wine, and rinse the mouth (before evaluating a new portion of wine) with plain water. For a lover, it’s better to just swallow a portion of wine.
Vzboltay believes that tasting is a very difficult task. For your training, development and consolidation of the skill of a taster, you can blindfolded, tasting white and red wines from different glasses, try to determine whether it is white or red wine.
Relevance: 05.08.2021
Tags: wine and vermouth