E-Tasting Guide

Learning how to taste wines is a straightforward adventure that will deepen your appreciation for both wines and winemakers. Starting with your basic senses and expanding from there you will learn how to taste wine like the pros in no time. Keep in mind that you can smell thousands of unique scents, but your taste perception is limited to salty, sweet, sour and bitter.

HOW TO HOST A WINE-TASTING

COMMON DESCRIPTORS FOR WINE

Are you slightly freaked out by the wine jargon you read in a wine review, or do you have trouble distinguishing between fine and poor-quality wines? Relax. It’s really not that difficult.

Wine descriptors are common terms you can use to describe a particular wine. Descriptors can help you put words to the wine you taste. Unless you want to drink the same wine for the rest of your life, you’re going to have to decide what it is that you like or don’t like in a wine and communicate that to another person who can steer you toward a wine you’ll like.

There are two hurdles here: Finding the words to describe what you like or don’t like, and then getting the other person to understand what you mean.

Some common descriptors used to describe wines, are:

Aroma or bouquet: The smell of a wine; bouquet applies particularly to the aroma of older wines. Some aromas associated with wines include fruits, herbs, flowers, earth, grass, tobacco, butterscotch, toast, vanilla, mocha, and chocolate.
Body: The apparent weight of a wine in your mouth, which is usually attributable principally to a wine’s alcohol. You can classify a wine as light-bodied, medium-bodied, or full-bodied.
Crisp: A wine with refreshing acidity. Acidity is more of a taste factor in white wines than in reds. White wines with a high amount of acidity feel crisp.
Dry: In winespeak, dry is the opposite of sweet. You can classify the wine you’re tasting as either dry, off-dry (in other words, somewhat sweet or semi-sweet), or sweet.
Finish: The impression or aftertaste a wine leaves in the back of your mouth and in your throat as you swallow it. In a good wine, you can still perceive the wine’s flavors — such as fruitiness or spiciness — at that point.
Flavour intensity: How strong or weak a wine’s flavours are. Flavour intensity is a major factor in pairing wine with food, and it also helps determine how much you like a wine.
Fruity: A wine with aromas and flavours that suggest fruit; does not imply sweetness. You smell the fruitiness with your nose; in your mouth, you “smell” it through your retro nasal passage.
Oaky: A wine that has oak flavours (smoky, toasty), often resulting from storage in oak barrels either during or after fermentation.
Soft: A wine has a smooth rather than crisp mouthfeel. Soft wines typically have a low amount of acidity.
Tannic: A red wine that is firm and leaves the mouth feeling dry. Tannins alone can taste bitter, but some tannins in wine are less bitter than others. Depending on the amount and nature of its tannin, you can describe a red wine as astringent, firm, or soft.

SOME WINE BASICS

Wine is old: Because wine can occur naturally, it was probably discovered by accident. By around 5000 BC, it was being manufactured in Persia and the Middle East, and possibly in China. Wine soon spread through Egypt and Greece, and from there it spread through Europe, where the Roman Empire and then the Catholic Church made it a lasting part of Western culture.
How wine is made: Typically, wine grapes are harvested, crushed, and allowed to ferment. Over the first 1-2 weeks, naturally-occurring or man-made yeasts convert the grape sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide. After that, the wine is placed into vessels where it is allowed to age for anywhere between a few months to a few years. Some fine wines, particularly reds, are known for aging well, but most don't significantly improve over time.
Wine names: Most wines get their names from the types of grapes they're made from, while others, particularly European varieties, may get their names from the regions where they're from. It's simple: Pinot Noir is made from Pinot Noir grapes; Chardonnay is made from Chardonnay grapes, Cabernet Sauvignon is made from Cabernet Sauvignon, and so on. In practice, you'll find many wines that are blends of more than one grape.
Types of wine: Red wine is made from the skins and pulp of red grapes. White wine is usually made from the juice of white grapes, but it can also be made from red grapes when there is minimal contact with the skin. Rose wines are made when the juice of red grapes stays in contact with the skin long enough to take on a pinkish colour. Sparkling wines, such as champagne, are made by trapping some of the carbon dioxide that is released by the yeast. Sweet wines, also known as dessert wines, are made by ensuring that some of the sugars aren't broken down during the process. Fortified wines are wines mixed with spirits - such as brandy - to give them special flavors and higher alcohol contents.
Balance: As a general rule, although there are exceptions, finer wines are more balanced than lesser-quality wines. By "balanced," we mean a wine that is not too sweet, but not bitter; not too acidic, but not dull or flat; and which has a unique character that tastes natural, complex, and well-crafted. It takes time to learn how to recognize these qualities, and you'll never develop this skill if you only taste poorly-made wines. If you can first identify a balanced wine, other subtler factors will develop with time.

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