WINE CELLAR
If you taste wine correctly, it becomes an art that you can really enjoy.
Here 5 steps of wine tasting methods that makes your experience better:
1) See the Color
The wine color is better judged by putting it against a white background. The wine glass can be put at an angle for better viewing the colors. The color of the wine is essential since it can give information about the grape variety and let the taster know whether the wine was aged in the wood.
Observe the color and clarity of the wine in front of a white background with a well-lighted atmosphere. Notice whether the wine is clear and bright or cloudy and dull. The intensity of color within each kind of wine gives an idea of how the wine will taste. As a general rule, color saturation changes at the same rate as flavor intensity.
2) Swirl
It is impossible to know, for example, whether white wine is heavy or light without tasting it. Before taking a sip, the taster tries to determine the order in which wines should be judged purely for appearance and nose. Heavy wines will be darker in color and often more intense on the nose. Sweeter wines, when denser, leave thick, sticky streaks (called legs or tears) on the inside of the glass when swirled.
3) Sniff
Sniffing the wine before taking a sip is essential since smell is the primary sense used in wine tasting. The quality of a wine can be judged by its bouquet and taste. The total aromatic experience of the wine is named the bouquet.
Evaluating a wine's bouquet can also reveal errors such as cork staining, age-related oxidation, overexposure to oxygen or lack of preservatives, and wild yeast contamination. Pausing to experience a wine bouquet helps the wine taster to anticipate wine flavors. A wine's "nose" - its bouquet or aroma - is the main determinant of palatability.
Consider what you smell. What does the aroma remind you of? Fruit or vegetable? Herbs or spices? Let the scent take you to a time and experience.
4) Sip
For the first sip, take a larger one than usual and hold the wine in your mouth for 3-5 seconds to cover the surface.
Once in the mouth, aromatics are further released by exposure to body heat and transferred retronasal to the olfactory receptor site. This stage is where the characteristic complex taste experience of wine begins.
Tasting a glass of wine involves perceiving its taste and mouthfeel qualities, including its combination of texture, flavor, weight, and overall "structure."
After appreciating its fragrance properties, the wine taster enjoys the wine by holding it in the mouth for a few seconds to saturate the taste buds.
By puckering one's lips and breathing through this small opening, too much ester will pass through, and more will be released due to oxygen.
When the wine is allowed to pass slowly through the mouth, it offers the connoisseur a complete flavor profile available to the human palate.
5) Savor
The finish is the feeling you get when you swallow the wine, and it can be very different from the taste you get on your palate. You want to look for an alcohol taste (there shouldn’t be one) and the length of time the wine taste stays with you. This time is called “the finish,” and truly outstanding wines can be enjoyed in up to twenty minutes. This length of flavor profile makes some wines stand out as world-class compared to others.
