How to conduct a wine tasting

Get the temp under control.

Understanding and controlling serving temperatures can maximize wine flavor and aroma. Whites and Rosés are commonly served too cold, and reds too warm. For wine service, our refrigerator temperatures are too cold, and our room temperatures are too high. Listed below are recommended serving temperatures.

Get a thermometer. Champagne or sparkling wine should be chilled to the ideal temperature when serving. This Laser Wine Thermometer reads the internal temperature of the wine in the bottle before you pop the cork!!   

40 and below – refrigerator.

• 43 – 47 – sweet whites.
• 43 – 50 – sparkling.
• 45 – 50 – light whites and Rosé.
• 50 – 55 – medium and full body whites, light reds.
• 55 – medium reds.
• 59 – 64 – full body and aged reds.

70 and above – room temperature.     

Just breathe.

In my opinion, you should decant all wines except Champagne. This is to let them breathe, exposing them to oxygen. Also, just removing the cork will not expose the wine to enough oxygen. When decanting wines with sediment, pour slowly so you don’t stir up the sediment, leaving a little wine and sediment in the bottle. Use a long-neck decanter to swirl the wine to expose it to more oxygen.

Sample.

Once decanted, sample the nose multiple times to see how it changes and progresses as time passes. The minimum decanting time should be fifteen minutes, and the maximum can be much longer for big wines like Barolo or Amarone. There is no set amount of decanting time. You can serve wine any time along the way as long as you like it, but don’t rush it.      

Glassware.

There is such a thing as an official tasting glass. You can buy one here. I have one, and it’s excellent for tasting as it concentrates aromas at the top of the glass, but it’s not a beautiful wine glass. More aesthetically acceptable alternatives are “Chianti” style glasses, and Riedel’s, for example, has been approved by the Institute of Masters of Wine for use at student training seminars.   

Tastings types in my own words:

• Front labeling – observe, read the label, read professional tasting notes, and research all available information about the wine and taste.
• Something in common – blind taste and describe wines with common attributes, i.e., grape type, year, region, and country.
• Clueless – blind taste and evaluate a wine to determine its quality, price bracket, age, and development (where it is on a wine timeline, new-mature).

Systematic approach.

Keep notes to share with a fellow wine enthusiast or for later reference, and organize your notes by using a professional tasting notes sheet. One is available from the Court of Sommeliers here: Deductive Tasting Grid. Proficiency in wine tasting includes lots of trial and error, so it’s very instructive to follow the details of the Appearance, Nose, Palate, and Conclusion steps in the tasting notes sheet.

Appearance.

For whites, don’t look at the edge. The core color of the wine is the most telling. For reds, looking at the edge and core to gain clues, such as brick-red edges, indicates older wines. Holding the wine against a white background as you tilt the glass helps examine the color.

Nose or odors.

After gently swirling your glass, you can gain an essential first impression by taking a medium-length sniff or two. Many flaws can be detected with these initial sniffs! After the first impression sniffs, rest your nose for a few seconds, put it into the slightly tipped glass, and breathe in slowly, concentrating on what you are smelling. It’s essential and fun to identify all aspects of the smells from the tasting notes sheet.  

Palate or taste.

After you smell it, get acquainted with the wine by tasting it once, then taste it a second and third time and move the wine around in your mouth so it makes contact with all your taste buds on the tip, sides, and back of your tongue. Also, draw air through the wine while tipping your head forward slightly to give you an even better sense of the aromas and tastes. Be careful; this would be considered rude-sounding to non-winos at non-tasting events.

It’s essential to try to identify and get to know all the aspects of taste from the tasting notes sheet. Tannin will dry your mouth, and the acid will cause you to pucker, as when eating a tart apple, alcohol may cause your nose to burn slightly, and bitterness is detected at the back of your tongue.

After you swallow, look for a pleasant finish and a lingering taste. The longer, the better. On the other hand, you can detect flaws at this point, such as odd tastes, bad tastes, unbalanced tastes, or a wine whose flavor doesn’t linger.

A conclusion.

Your objective conclusion should be based on all the information gathered from working through the notes sheet. Your subjective determination is deciding if you like the wine. Would you rebuy it? And would you share it with a friend?   

Those are the basics, here’s to a successful tasting, Cheers!

Say Cheers in:

• French: a votre santé.
• Portuguese: saúde.
• Latin: sanitas bona.
• Finish: kippis.
• Zulu: oogly wawa.