Tasting Guides

Some Hints on How to Taste and Enjoy Wine

You don't need to analyze wine to enjoy it, but if you pay attention to what you're tasting you'll find that you'll be better able to identify what you like or don't like in a wine. Before you taste make sure there are no distracting smell or odours in the room, like cooking or perfume. The only thing you should smell is the wine in your glass. Glasses should be clean and dry and filled with only a small sample of wine (about a quarter of the glass). Wines all have certain components and characteristics in common. When we taste, we use sight, smell and taste to recognize the various components and to assess the quality and health of the wine.

Appearance

A good look at the wine can you us about the condition and even age of the wine.

Clarity: is the wine clear and bright (as it should be) or is it hazy or murky?

Intensity: is the colour pale or deep?

Colour: hold the glass at an angle against a white background (table cloth or sheet of paper) and assess the colour in the middle of the bowl of the glass and at the rim. White wines start life pale and darken with age. Red wines start out a deep, bright purple and gradually turn ruby, mahogany and eventually brown as they age.

Smell or "Nose"

Swirling the wine in the glass allows its aromas to be liberated into the air, so give your glass a whirl and then take a deep sniff. What are you looking for?

Condition: does it smell clean and attractive or is there any mustiness or off-odour?

Intensity: is the nose faint or pronounced?

Character: what does it smell like? Here are some things you may smell: fruit, grapes, lemon, grass, peaches, raspberries, blackcurrants, flowers, apples, vanilla, oak, smoke, plums and many, many more. Remember that there are no right or wrong answers, here. It's simply an exercise in thinking about what you're drinking.

Taste or "palate"

Take a sip of wine and swirl it around the mouth so that the wine is in contact with all parts of your mouth: tongue, gums, soft palate. Even better, tilt the head forward so that the wine is behind the front teeth and then slurp air into the mouth over the wine. This seems weird at first, but it's worth it. You can taste much more of the wine if you aerate it in this way.

So what are you looking for?

Sweetness: Sweetness is immediately noticeable on the tip of the tongue. If there's no apparent sugar the wine is called "dry".

Acidity: very important if the wine is to be refreshing and balanced. Lemon juice and vinegar are acidic. Too much and the wine tastes too tart; too little and the wine is known as "flabby", tasting heavy and just not refreshing.

Alcohol: a vital component in wine, but one that shouldn't stand apart from the other elements if the wine is to be balanced. When the alcohol is too high, there will be a bit of a burning sensation after the wine is swallowed.

Tannin: a natural preservative found in grape skins and stalks, tannin is the stuff that makes young red wines seem harsh and leaves the mouth feeling dry. Tannin's role as preservative is extremely important in high quality red wines that are made to age for many years.

Body: an indicator of how the wine feels in the mouth. Pinot Noir or Beaujolais tend to feel quite light in the mouth while Bordeaux or Australian Shiraz tend to be full and dense. So, the progression for both reds and whites is light-bodied, to medium bodied, to full-bodied.

Fruit: the taste and intensity of the fruit in the mouth; generally, the better the wine, the more evident the fruit. Also, younger wines will often display more fruit than mature wine. Length: how long the taste of the wine lingers in the mouth after swallowing is a good indication of the wine's quality: the longer the better.

Conclusions

Having considered the above elements, what did you think of the wine?

Quality: you might think it's obvious to say that a £30 bottle of wine is likely to be high quality and a £3 wine low quality, but the assessment of quality goes beyond this. A wine that looks clear and bright, has a pronounced, intense nose, shows good fruit and balanced acid, sweetness and alcohol, and has a long finish might be an inexpensive wine. It would be classified as good quality, though, because it is a good example of its type.

Maturity: this is a measure of the wine's readiness to drink, which is not the same thing as its age. Many wines are made to be drunk as soon as they are bottled while others require years (or decades) of maturation in bottle to reach their optimum state. Simple wines, which are designed to be drunk young, will not improve with age. Rather they will deteriorate and be over the hill if kept too long.

Faults: Thankfully, modern winemaking practices have reduced most of the problems we used to commonly find in wine, but there's still one which affects around a small percent of bottles: bad corks. "Corked", the term used to describe the affliction, has nothing to do with cork floating in the wine, but rather a condition in which the wine has reacted with a substance in the cork, producing a musty, corky smell and taste, reminiscent of wet cardboard. The wine should always smell clean and appealing. The cork problem is the reason behind many wineries switching to synthetic closures or screw caps, which are now widely used with aromatic varietals like Sauvignon Blanc and Riesling.

To the experts, just about every wine is recognizable through its distinct aroma and flavour. But you don’t have to be a Master of Wine to be able to spot the difference between spicy shiraz and chocolatey claret.

Almond
Usually Italian, especially Soave and Valpolicella
Apple
Many dry whites, sweet Loire and some German Riesling
Apricot
Condrieu and sweet Loire wines
Asparagus
Sauvignon Blanc, eg Sancerre, Pouilly Fume and New World Sauvignons
Banana
Young and inexpensive whites and Beaujolais
Biscuit
Champagne
Blackcurrant
Cabernet Sauvignon, Claret
Bread
Champagne
Brioche
Champagne
Bubblegum
Beaujolais
Butter
Chardonnay, white Burgundy
Cabbage
Mature Burgundy, both red and white
Cat's Pee
Sauvignon Blanc and Muller-Thurgau
Cedar or Cigar Box
Claret and Cabernet Sauvignon
Cherry
Burgundy, Beaujolais and lots of Italian reds
Chocolate
Many New World reds, Claret and Burgundy
Clove
Young Cabernet Sauvignon
Coffee
Various reds, usually top quality and young
Currant LeafSauvignon Blanc
Eucalyptus
New World Cabernet, some Claret and Shiraz
Flint and Wet Stones
Pouilly Fume and Chablis
Floral
German Riesling
GameNorthern Rhone, Shiraz and Mature Burgundy
Gooseberry
Sauvignon Blanc
Grape
Muscats
Grapefruit
Scheurebe Grapes, English and German wines
Grass
Sauvignon Blanc
Green Pepper
Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Loire reds
Honey
Sweet whites and mature Burgundy
Lanolin
Sauternes
Leather
Shiraz/Syrah
Lemon
Many young whites
Lime
Australian Riesling/Chenin Blanc
Liquorice
Many young reds, especially Claret
Lychee
Gewurtztraminer
Marzipan
Sweet white Loire
Melon
New World Chardonnay
Mint
Cabernet Sauvignon, some Shiraz
Nivea
Gewurtztraminer
Nut
Chardonnay, White Burgundy and Champagne
Oak
Any red or white that has been in touch with wood
Olive
Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc
Orange
Many sweet wines
Peach
Many whites, New World Chardonnay and some sweet wines
Pear Drops
Many young, inexpensive whites and Beaujolais
Pepper
Red Rhones
PetrolRiesling
Plum
Merlot
Potato Peelings
Cabernet Franc and Red Loire
Raspberry
Red Rhones, Red Burgundy and Beaujolais, New World Pinot Noir and Red Loire
Rose Petals
Alsace Muscat, Gewurtztraminer, Red Burgundy and some Barolo
Smoke
Full-bodied reds and Pouilly Fume
Spice
Many mature reds especially top Claret, some American Oak aged whites
Strawberry
Beaujolais
Tar
Barolo and Rhone
Tobacco
Many reds, especially Claret
Vanilla
Any white aged in new Oak
Wet Wool
White Burgundy