Discover the fundamentals of wine tasting with only four easy steps. Sommeliers routinely put the following suggestions for wine tasting into practice in order to hone their palates and improve their ability to recall wines. This technique is utilized by professionals, but it is actually extremely easy to comprehend and can assist anyone in developing a more sophisticated appreciation for wine.
Everyone is capable of tasting wine; all you need is a brain and a glass of wine to get started. A wine tasting consists of the following 4 steps:
1. A visual examination of the wine should be performed in unobtrusive illumination.
2. Identify aromas using your orthonasal olfaction through the sense of smell. (e.g. breathing through your nose)
3. Evaluation of the taste should include analysis of the taste structure (sour, bitter, and sweet) as well as flavors obtained from retronasal olfaction. (e.g. breathing with the back of your nose)
4. Think/Conclude: Create a comprehensive profile of a wine that you will be able to keep in your long-term memory.
When you taste something, try coating your tongue with a larger drink of wine followed by multiple smaller tastes so that you may isolate and pick out individual flavors. This will help you find more flavors. Pay attention to just one flavor at a time. Always consider in terms of more general flavors before moving on to more specific ones; for example, go from "black fruits" to "dark plum, roasted mulberry, or jammy blackberry" before moving on to more specific flavors.
Enhance Your Tasting Skills
Comparing different wines in the same environment will help you enhance your palate more quickly, and it will also make the smells of the wines more apparent. You can either join a local tasting organization, get a flight of "tastes" at your neighborhood wine bar, or get together with some friends to try a variety of wines all at once. You are going to be astounded by how much information can be gleaned from side-by-side comparisons of various types!
