How to Taste Wine.

Part two - The taste test

It's all very well and good to be able to say "I like that wine" but it's a lot more helpful to be able to say "I like that wine because." In order to be able to do that, a brief understanding of the structure that makes up the taste of wine is necessary.

For any wine to be classified as a good wine, it needs to have "balance." To put it in simple terms, the weight of the fruit, the tannins, and the acid must all have the same level of intensity.  Imagine a glass of wine that leaves you thinking that the enamel has been stripped off your teeth and not much else - this wine is clearly to acidic.  Alternatively a glass of wine that totally numbs your tongue and lips with no real fruit flavor to speak of - this wine is to tannic to be balanced. Finally the wine that you feel is like drinking sweet flabby alcoholic fruit juice - this wine is unbalanced because it has too much fruit weight and not enough acid and tannins.

So, how do you tell if the wine is balanced?  It’s fairly easy but requires some practice.  Firstly take a reasonable sip of wine and roll it around your mouth for about five seconds before you swallow.  Notice the sensations very carefully. The very front of the tongue registers sweetness. The back of tongue as you swallow registers bitter tastes. Acidity is picked up by the sides and just under the tongue. Tannins are perceived as a mouth puckering sensation on the side of the tongue and the gums.

If you watch the experts taste wine, they normally suck in some air when the wine is still in their mouth.  There is a very important reason for doing this, and its not because they enjoy looking like a complete prat.  If you were paying attention in class last week, you will remember how important your sense of smell is to your ability to be able to taste.  By sucking in air through your mouth over the top of the wine and breathing out through your nose, some of the wine vapors will travel past the olfactory sensors (sense of pong glands.) The message these vapors convey to the brain is of critical importance in your ability to be able to taste the wine.

If you think that swilling wine around your mouth, noisily sucking in air and then splitting the wine out makes you look like a prat, then don't!  Just take a sip, roll it around your mouth, and swallow the wine, immediately breath in through your mouth and breath out through your nose. This is just as effective.

Ok, now what are you looking for?  Balance and harmony. If the wine isn't balanced now, it won't mysteriously gain balance in five or ten year’s time.  Harmony is a different story.  If you are tasting a young wine and the fruit weight is balanced with the acid and tannins, but the acid seems a bit harsh, and the tannins seem a bit rough, there is every chance that in time the wine will soften, the component parts will integrate and the wine will then be harmonious.

By the way, its perfectly all right to love soft, sweet, flabby grape juice styles of wine, but isn’t it better to know what and why you like it.

The path to becoming a wine geek is filled with interesting twists and turns, This has been just one small laneway. (If you are serious about learning hot to taste wine, print this out and refer to it as a simple reference when you are experimenting. It’s too much to remember at once.)

Cheers

Ric