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How do you taste a wine?
Tasting wine, tasting wine, tasting wine - three terms for the same process. A wine is usually tasted in order to judge its quality. Professional wine critics, sommeliers (wine experts who work in the catering trade) or tasters (who work as buyers in the wine trade, for example) do this full-time - but anyone can taste and judge wine. There is no need to make a science out of it, because drinking wine should first and foremost be a pleasure and a source of enjoyment. One of the essential elements of professional wine tasting is that you don't swallow, but spit, so that you remain sober and your judgement is not clouded by the intoxication that would otherwise set in.
When asked after a meal whether they liked it, nobody would think of answering: "I don't know. I don't know enough about food for that." Just as impartially as you say whether you like a meal or not, you can and should also say whether you like a wine or not. People who are more intensively involved with wine and wine tasting only go one step further and ask why they like or dislike the wine.
In this respect, it is helpful to know what you can look out for when tasting wine in order to recognise for yourself why you like a wine or not, to be able to discuss it with others and to know in which direction you want to continue tasting your way through the wide world of wines the next time you go to the wine merchant. Whether you like a wine or not depends on the following criteria:
Appearance
The visual impression alone determines whether a wine tastes good or not. After all, an attractively presented meal tastes better than one that has been carelessly thrown on the plate. The following criteria are important when it comes to appearance:
- A clear or even sparkling and shiny wine makes a better impression than a dull or even cloudy wine.
- The depth of colour - depending on the grape variety - allows conclusions to be drawn about the extract and therefore the intensity of flavour and quality: a wine that is deep red or a strong golden yellow is more promising than a wine with a pale, inconspicuous colour.
- The colour gives an indication of the age of the wine: the darker a white wine and the browner a red wine is, the older it is, which means that the primary fruit has receded into the background in terms of aroma and taste.
Odour
Smelling the wine involves checking the following questions:
- Is the aroma clear and pure-toned or are there distracting components?
- Is the aroma rather strong or barely perceptible?
- Can certain Flavours (e.g. of fruit) can be identified? Does the fragrance evoke certain associations, such as fruit, flowers, vegetables, spices, wood or - which can happen with red wines - perhaps a horse stable?
- Is the aroma spectrum varied and exciting or rather boring?
All these factors determine whether the odour is perceived as pleasant or not. There are wines that smell of nothing, others have such an animating and complex aroma that you want to smell them forever, while others have a downright repulsive nose.
To enhance the olfactory impression, you can swirl the glass in your free hand or on the table surface to give the wine oxygen, which opens up the aromas.
Flavour and texture
To perceive the flavour and mouthfeel of the wine, take a sip and hold it in your mouth for a few seconds before either swallowing or spitting it out. At a professional wine tasting, appropriate containers are provided for spitting. These usually look like a champagne cooler with a removable lid that has a hole in the centre. In German, such a container is called a "Spucknapf", in English it is called a "spittoon", in French a "crachoir".
Oxygen can also be added to the wine in the mouth to open up the flavours. This is done by subtly slurping, but it is also sufficient to move the wine back and forth a little with the tongue. Even if you sometimes experience the opposite: a professional wine tasting is silent; the slurping or spitting should hardly be audible. A high slurping volume is therefore by no means an indication of a high level of wine expertise; rather the opposite.
When tasting, the following questions can be explored:
- Does the wine taste intense and complex or rather neutral (like water)?
- Does the wine have a perceptible Sweetness?
- Does the wine have a perceptible Acidity? If so, is it harmonious, refreshing and stimulating or rather dominant, sharp and unpleasant?
- Does the wine have Carbonic acid (like mineral water)?
- Does the wine have perceptibletannins? If so, are they coarse or fine? Are they supple, harmonious and soft or rather furry, drying and bitter?
- How strong is the Alcohol perceptible? Is it well integrated and supports the wine or is it warming or even pungent?
A wine will taste good and therefore be judged favourably if all these factors are in a balanced relationship to each other and none of them stand out inharmoniously.
Finish
The finish - or reverberation, persistence or length - of a wine refers to the time that the wine lingers in the mouth after swallowing (or spitting): how long the aromas and flavours can be perceived and how long the mouthfeel lasts. The finish can be measured in seconds and can last less than five (short), five to ten (medium) or over ten, sometimes even twenty seconds or more (long). The longer the finish and the more lasting the impression on the palate, the higher the quality of the wine.
Book recommendation
A recommended book for a practical and systematic approach to wine tasting is the guide "Wein degustieren" by Kurt Gibel (Hallwag-Verlag, ISBN: 9783774262522 - €9.90).
Short description by the publisher: "This little book is a completely new approach to wine tasting. You don't swot up on grey theory, but activate both hemispheres of the brain at the same time with the help of the pictorial representations on the fold-out wine maps. This holistic method helps the memory and the art of tasting is learnt in a fun and effortless way. The 120 most important tasting terms and around 120 flavours quickly become familiar to the user of the work. The second chapter explains how it is that wines sparkle, smell and taste so differently. Other sections of the book deal with food and wine as well as wine temperatures. They are intended to encourage readers to leave the beaten track and seek out their own flavour experiences."