When you make a complete tasting of a wine, it doesn’t mean that you just taste the wine, but that you also examine all the details in order to create an overall impression. It may appear a bit too scientific to proceed this way, considering that wine is above all a pleasant drink that should be enjoyed without formalities.
However, it can be interesting to learn how it formally works when the professional wine tasters evaluate a wine. You can then learn the basic concepts of how it works and when the method is well trained, you can then spontaneously use it to make sure that the wine tasting becomes successful.
To begin, a wine should as said, not just be drank. You use 3 of our 5 senses in 3 different stages when tasting a wine; first the sight, then the smell and it’s then at last that you taste the wine. It demands a bit of concentration in the beginning, but it’s well worth it. In any case, the tasting should be fun and relaxed, that you volontary perform together with friends.
The surroundings: To best carry out a tasting, you should be in an illuminated room with a natural light that does not disguise the natural colors. There should not be any strong odors such as perfume, smoke (tobacco or fireplace), kitchen odors or flowers in the room. The room temperature should not exceed 18-20 ° C.
If you are only going to taste wine without a meal, it can be good to prepare some pieces of bread or cheese that are used to “neutralize” the taste buds before trying a new wine. It is best to use a neutral bread without sugar, Italian gressini also works well.
If, on the other hand, you are to drink the wine at the table, around a meal, the wine will certainly appear in a different way than if it is drunk without food. However, it is at least as interesting and exciting because wine is above all a meal drink.
The glass: the glass is for the taster what a tool is for the professional. It should therefore be as well adapted as possible (see the section on glass). A wine does not express itself as well, sometimes not at all, if it’s tasted in a regular drinking glass.
The glass should be transparent so you can see the color and preferably the glass should be thin. The shape of the glass is described in detail in the section for glass. If you only do a tasting without a meal, there are special tasting glasses that have a so-called tulip shape and are slightly closed at the top. They are well suited for tasting both white and red wine.
The shape of the glass should not be taken lightly. In fact, the truth is that the influence of the glass on both the taste and the aroma is so great that the norm- and standardization organization ISO, after research, has produced a kind of “ideal glass” that is considered the most suitable for tasting. This glass has been called INAO.
The different stages of the tasting: The tasting is carried out as previously mentioned with the help of 3 of our 5 senses; sight, smell and taste. In a way, you can actually add the feeling because the feeling in the mouth, the temperature of the wine, the consistency and possibly also the carbon dioxide play an important role.
1. The View :
You first look at the wine and see how its color has been affected by the grape variety used and by the production method used. In this way you can obtain lots of information:
-The clarity of the color: today all wines are ready. However, small crystals of insoluble bitrate can sometimes be found in some wines. This is the case for e.g. wine exposed to cold. Fortunately, the quality of the wine is not affected by this. You determine the clarity of the wine (red wine) by tilting the glass in front of a white wall, white cloth or white paper.
-The hue of the color: the production method sometimes affects the color. The white wines stored in oak barrels often have a darker color than other white wines not stored in oak barrels. The age of the wine and storage conditions also affect the color. With age, white wines become darker, then gold-colored and finally copper-colored. If this ripening process is completely normal for sweet dessert wines, you should be careful when the color has developed in a similar way for dry white wines.
Dry white wines with darker color usually means that the wine is already too old and non-potable. Young white wines should be pale yellow, sometimes with almost light green hues. Red wines, on the other hand, have violet hues when they are young. If the wine is slightly orange or terracotta, the wine has been aged and is mature. In these cases, if you have several similar bottles of the same vintage in stock, you should therefore drink them relatively quickly.
-The intensity of the color: do not confuse the hue (hue) with the intensity of the color. A wine with a light color sometimes looks diluted. But the strength of the color often depends on the grape variety used. Among the reds, wines made from Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon give a deeper color than e.g. a wine made from Pinot noir or Gamay that are thinner in color. The production method also plays a role. The longer the winegrower leaves the skin of the grapes with the grape juice, the darker the wine.
– “The legs” of the wine: it is what is called “jambes” in French and refers to the liquid edge that is visible on the glass when you turn the glass in your hand. If the “legs” on the glass are thick and well marked, it means that the wine has a high sugar content which increases the viscosity of the wine. These wines are therefore considered “fat” (gras) or “round in taste”.
Below you will find a summary for a visible evaluation of the wine:
| hue of the color | Intensity of the color | Clarity of the color | |
| White | light yellow, strawcolored, gold, amber | Light Strong Intense Dark Deep |
Turbid Not clear Certain precipitate Cristalclear |
| Rosé | rose hip, salmon, rose, raspberry, pomegranate | ||
| Red | ruby, cherry, peony, purple red, pomegranate, violet |
2. The aromas – the nose :
The second part of the tasting is the smell, “le nez” (nose in French). The wine secretes a variety of aromas that are constantly moving and make themselves more or less noticeable depending on the temperature of the wine and depending on the aeration. You start by examining the nose without touching the glass. You then make a light movement on the glass to set the wine in motion.
Air is then supplied and new aromas are secreted. The aromas are secreted in different ways depending on the temperature of the wine. This is partly why the right temperature is so important when serving a wine. If the wine is served too cold, no aromas are evaporated and the wine becomes “dumb” and “flat”.
If it is served too warm, the aromas are secreted too quickly, the wine oxidizes too fast and what is left is a drink with a heavy taste of alcohol. There are countless number of words to describe the nose of a wine. Most often these words refer to easily recognizable aromas from nature.
The whole thing is in a way a game where the objective is to structure the wine’s complex aromas and to associate them with well-known scents that you can put words on. Within the oenology, these scents are classified into different families according to a certain logic. The most common families are:
– Floral scents
– Fruity scents
– Green and vegetable scents
– Spicy scents
– Balsamic scents (resin, vanilla and incense)
– Animal scents
– Fiery scents
– Mineral scents
– Milky scents
– Bakery scents
Below you will find a description of how the different scents are summarized:
| SUMMARY OF AROMAS | |
| Floral | White flowers (hawthorn, jasmine, acacia), linden, violet, iris, peony, rose |
| Fruity | Red berries (cherries, strawberries, raspberries, red currants), black berries (black currants, blackberries, blueberries), yellow fruits (peach, apricot), white fruits (apple, pear, white peach), exotic fruits (passion fruit, mango, pineapple, lychee), citrus fruits (lemon, grapefruit, orange, mandarin) |
| Green, vegetable | Grass, fern, moss, undergrowth, fungus, hummus, shrub vegetation |
| Spicy | Pepper, ginger, cinnamon, vanilla, cloves |
| Balsamic | resin, pine, turpentine, sandalwood |
| Animal | Meat, game, musk, fur, skins |
| fierly | Burnt, smoke, grilled, toasted, toasted (coffee, cocoa), caramel (melted sugar), tobacco, dry hay |
| Mineral | Flint, graphite, oil, iodine |
| Bakery | cake, honey, licorice |
| Milky | fresh butter, cream |
- The palate :
This is the last but not least important part of the tasting. You sip some wine into your mouth. You then make sure that the wine spreads in the mouth by inhaling some air. You can also “chew” the wine. The wine warms up in the mouth and spreads new aromas on the tongue, but also from the oral cavity and the pharynx.
The tongue can only register the 4 basic flavors which are bitter, sour, sweet and salty. You should therefore not taste wines when you caught a cold, because the oral cavity and pharynx are then clogged. In addition to the 4 basic flavors, the mouth is sensitive to the wine’s temperature, viscosity, possible presence of carbon dioxide and tannins. It is through the taste that you feel the wine’s balance, the harmony and elegance, but it is also through the taste that you feel if the wine is bad and unbalanced.
The harmony in white and rosé wines is felt in the balance between acidity and alcohol for the dry wines. For the sweet wines it is the balance between acidity and sweetness that is judged. For the red wines, the balance between acidity, alcohol and tannins is assessed. A good balance in the wine then emphasizes the aromas of the wine.
After an initial analysis, the wine is swallowed. The taster then concentrates on evaluating the strength and length of the aromas. You judge whether the wine has a “long aftertaste”. The more aromas that are in the wine, the more concentrated and juicy it is and the more it will spread in the mouth and stimulate the taste buds. In other words, the “longer” the wine is in taste, the better it is.
To recognize a wine:
The tasting involves evaluating the quality of a wine and assessing whether it is a stylish, mediocre or a really bad wine. If the origin is stated, you also try to find out if the wine is representative for its region.
If you want, you can make the tasting a game between the participants. You can e.g. serve wines made from different grape varieties which you should then try to determine blind. You can also taste wines from different countries and if you become really skilled, you can limit the selection to different regions or even to different appellations. What is well worth testing is to try a red, a white and a rosé wine that is served into black wine glasses.
There are such black wine tasting glasses to buy, but if you don’t have them, you can also use a blindfold for the person tasting the wine. The most important thing is that the taster doesn’t see the wine, but only judges based on smell and taste. You will probably be amazed to see how few people that really manage to figure out the 3 colors blind, which is excellent proof that wine tasting is actually much more extensive than just the drinking session !
| Acidity level | ||||
| Too little | Sufficient | Too much | ||
| Flat, thin | Soft | Fresh | Lively | Green, prickly, aggressive |
| Sweetness | ||||
| None | Sufficient | Too much | ||
| Dry | Soft, compliant | Full-bodied | Liquory | Syrupy, heavy |
| Alkohol strength | ||||
| Too little | Sufficient | Too much | ||
| Light, thin | Light | Generous | Powerful, Warm |
Alcohol Strong, Burning |
| Tannin level | ||||
| None | Balanced | Too present | ||
| Easy to drink | Velvetsoft, smooth |
Structured, wellconstructed |
Robust, Dry, Masculin |
Rustic, angular, rough, bitter, rough, hard, |
How do you then get started with the tasting? There are actually special kits with small bottles that are sold to learn to recognize aromas and to learn to structure the sense of smell. You can e.g. invite friends home and arrange trainings where you first use an aroma kit, you may even organize a small competition. Then you taste real wines.
Remember, after each trial, to put the nose in the arm fold and slowly blow out the air through the nose in the shirt or sweater sleeve. This is the best way to “reset” or “neutralize” the nose, because in this way you blow out the aromas from the previous sample that are left in the nose. Professional testers do so in both the wine and perfume industries.
You learn a lot by comparing different tastes. You can e.g. start by trying wines that are very different such as a white Chardonnay from Burgundy and a Sancerre (Sauvignon grapes). Among the reds, you can try a Burgundy wine (Pinot noir grapes), against a Bordeaux wine (Cabernet sauvignon and Merlot).
Even the beginner will notice that the Burgundy wine is lighter, “fruity” with hints of “red berries”, while the Bordeaux wine is stronger, spicy with present tannins.
