WINE TASTING TECHNIC

How to Taste Wine?

1. Look

Check out the color, opacity and viscosity (wine legs). You don’t really need to spend more than 5 seconds on this step.

How to judge the look of a wine Color and opacity of wine can give you hints as to the approximate age, the potential grape varieties, the amount of acidity, alcohol, sugar and even the potential climate (warm vs. cool) where the wine was grown.
Age: As wines age they tend to change color towards more yellow and brown colors. Red wines also tend to become more translucent.

Potential Grape Varieties: Here are some common hints you can look for in the color and rim variation
a Nebbiolo-based wine will have a translucent brick color
a red blend with Merlot in it will have a slightly orange-tinged rim
a Malbec will often have a magenta pink rim
a youthful Syrah from a cool climate will have a blueish tinted rim
Alcohol and Sugar: Wine legs can tell us if the wine has high or low alcohol and/or high or low sugar.

2. Smell

Pick out at least 2 flavors and take your time identifying them. There are 3 types of wine aromas:

Primary Aromas come from grapes and include fruits, herb and flower notes

Secondary Aromas come from fermentation and yeast aromas.

Tertiary Bouquets come from aging, oxidation and oak such as baking spices, nutty aromas and vanilla.

Primary Aromas: Primary aromas are from the type of the grape and the climate where it grows. For instance, Barbera will often smell of licorice or anise, and this is because of Barbera grapes. Cabernet Sauvignon with blackcurrant or Capsicum aromas.Generally speaking, the fruit flavors in wine are primary aromas

Secondary Aromas: Secondary aromas come from the fermentation process (the yeast), Malolactic fermentation, on lees process, “Secondary” flavors are what you would expect come from the winemaking process—fermentation, malolactic conversion, and especially the influence of oak—think toast, vanilla, cedar, spice, mocha or coconut.

A great example of this is the sour smell that you can find in Brut Champagne that is sometimes described as ‘bready’ or ‘yeasty’, biscuits These sour aromas are present in all wines at some level.

Tertiary Aromas: Tertiary aromas (classically referred to as ‘bouquets’) come from aging wine. Aging aromas come from oxidation, aging in oak and aging in bottle over a period of time. The most common example of this is the ‘vanilla’ aroma associated with wine aged in oak. Other more subtle examples of tertiary aromas are nutty flavors found in vintage Champagne or dried fruit aromas that are associated with older red wines.

•       3. Taste

Two elements make up taste: flavor and structure.

Flavors such as lemon, raspberry or coconut.

Structure such as the level of sweetness, body, alcohol, acidity, and tannin.

Profile The taste of wine is also time-based, there is a beginning, middle (mid-palate) and end (finish).

Sweetness:
The best way to sense sweetness is on the front of your tongue in the first moment you taste a wine. Wines range from 0 grams per liter residual sugar (g/l RS) to about 220 g/l RS. By the way, 220 will have a consistency close to syrup!

Dry Wines Wine is ‘dry’ if it has less than 4g/l RS which is equivalent to a 1/2 teaspoon of sugar per glass.
Off- dry 5-9g/L
Medium dry ( 10-18g/L)
Medium Sweet (19-45g/L)
Sweet (Up 45g/L) Sauternes,Port
Very Sweet/Luscious

Acidity:
Acidity plays a major role in the overall profile of a wine because higher acidity wines tend to taste lighter in body. You can use these clues to determine if the wine is from a hot or cool climate and even to determine how old the wine is and how long it can age
Acidity refers to pH There are many types of acids in wine but the acid we’re discussing is simply the pH. Acidity is how tart a wine tastes. pH in wine ranges from 2.6 which is mouth-watering to about 4.9 which is flat.
Most wines range between 3 and 4 pH.
High Acidity wines are more tart and taste lighter.
High Acidity can indicate a wine from cooler climate region or wine grapes that were picked early.
Low acidity wines tend to taste smoother and have more body.
Super low acidity wines will taste flat or flabby.
Acidity Matters Wines with high acidity taste less sweet than wines with low acidity.

Tannin is a red wine characteristic  and it can tell us the type of grape, if the wine was aged in oak and how long the wine will age.
Tannin comes from 2 places: the skins and seeds of grapes or oak aging.
Oak Tannins Tannin from oak will often taste more smooth and round. It typically hits your palate in the center of your tongue.
Grape Tannins Tannin from grape skins and seeds is typically more abrasive and tastes more green.
Most red wines have some combination of either ‘only grape’ or ‘grape and oak’ tannins. It is one of the most challenging things to taste the difference between oak tannins and grape tannins, so don’t worry if you don’t get it right away

How and Why Wine Ages

Aging is most noticeably the process of the tannins in the wine reacting with other components until they are unable to stay in solution, where upon they become sediment (precipitation). While this is happening, the aromas of the grape are replaced by the bouquet of the aged wine (reductive aromas). At the same time, the color in the wine either lightens if it is a red wine (the anthocyanins - red pigments - bond to the sediment) or in white wine the color turns brown (oxidizes, just like a bite out of an apple - reds do this too, but it is harder to see).

So a hard, tannic red wine will, with luck, become softer in the mouth; less fruity, and more wood/leather in the nose, and generally more complex and full of nuance as it ages. An oaky white wine will become less fruity in the nose, more golden in color, and more complex and subtle in the taste (more caramel and less fruit flavors).

It is impossible to make general rules about how long any given wine will age. For example, while it is certain that many Cabernet Sauvignons will indeed age 5-7 years, there are plenty that will not age at all (the fruitier, less expensive styles) and more that will age for decades (the richer, more expensive selections).

The factors that allow a wine to age are quite complex, but here are a couple of rules of thumb:

•       The wine must have a fairly high level of Tannin to age at all.

•       All the tannin in the world is no good if the wine has no Acidity to keep it fresh tasting.

•       Acidity and tannin are all well and good, but it is fruit that makes wine taste good, and if there is not enough fruit in the wine, then when it ages it will taste like nothing.

•       The fuller a wine in all 3 of these components, the longer it will age.

•       The tannins can either come from the grapes themselves (skins and seeds) or (especially in the case of white) from being aged in wood, usually oak. Grape tannins are more subtle, but often as strong, and rarely as astringent (mouth drying) as oak tannins. Grape tannins are better than oak when it comes to aging, hence grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon, with thicker skins, tend to have better aging potential.

•       The acidity, while it can be added (illegal in many parts of the world), like the fruit, primarily comes from the grape itself. Acidity can be balanced in the winemaking process, but the best vintages have a perfect balance of tannin, fruit and acidity, in the grape itself.

•       More generalities: Cab ages best. Pinot ages surprisingly well, if it is a great Pinot. Chardonnay, when it is oaky, not only ages, but really needs a few years to even out. Merlot needs high levels of Cab in the blend to age well, Syrah rarely ages particularly well, except for true Rhones.

Oak derived flavors and aromas.

Heavy Toast contributes caramelized, smoky, burnt and toast flavors
Heavy toast French oak imparts cinnamon, ginger and clove with undertones of crème brulee, bitter cocoa, charcoal and roast coffee character. French oak often develops a very cedary aroma.
Heavy toast American oak imparts a heavy campfire/roasted coffee note with a strong vanilla signature
Heavy toast Hungarian oak impart a heavy vanilla note with spicy, molasses undertones

Medium Plus Toast imparts aromas of honey, roasted nuts, toasted bread, and baking spices. They lack the black spice and char tones of heavy toast yet remain very assertive.
Medium Toast imparts more spicy, woodsy tones to the wine and the effects are perceived more easily on the nose then on the palate.
Medium toast French oak imparts cigar box, cedary, creamy tones to the wine with toasty notes
Medium toast American oak imparts cafe au lait and coconut tones with a strong vanilla signature
Medium toast Hungarian oak imparts a vanilla note with spicy, earthy undertones

Light Toast raw wood, coconut and dill

Light toast French oak imparts notes of vanilla, raw wood shavings and sweet caramel notes

Light toast American oak imparts coconut and dill notes with raw wood tones

Light toast Hungarian oak imparts a light vanilla note with spicy, herbal undertones

Aromas associated with oak

HERBACEOUS: Weedy, Dill, Mown Hay, Menthol, Grass, Tobacco.
WOODY: Cedar, Sawdust, Pencil Shavings, Sappy, Green, Pine, Tar, Resin.
 SPICY: Clove, Cinnamon, Coconut, Vanilla.

Aromas that can develop in oak during the toasting process.

SMOKY: Barbecue, Wood Smoke, Burnt Sugar.
SWEET: Brown sugar, Barbeque Sauce, Maple Syrup, Butterscotch, Molasses, Honey, Toffee, Marshmallow,
CREAMY: Lactic, Butter. Cream
YEASTY: Popcorn, Cookie Dough. Baked Pastry Dough
ROASTED:, Graham Cracker, Toasted Bread, Coffee, Cereal, Caramel
NUTTY: Hazelnut, Walnut, Almond,
SPICY: Nutmeg, Dried Ginger, Cigar Box

Alcohol:
Alcohol can sometimes tell us the intensity of a wine and the ripeness of the grapes that went into making the wine.
Alcohol level can add quite a bit of body, spiciness and texture to wine.
Alcohol Ranges from 5% ABV – 16% ABV. Fortified wines are 17-21% ABV.
Alcohol Level directly correlated to the sweetness of the grapes prior to fermenting the wine.
Warmer growing regions produce sweeter grapes which have the potential to make higher alcohol wines.
Low vs. High Alcohol Wine Neither style is better than the other, it’s simply a characteristic of wine.

Body:(Light Medium Full)
Body can give us clues to the type of wine, the region it was grown and the possible use of oak aging.
Body is the culmination of all of the aforementioned wine characteristics as well as the profile of the taste from start to finish. You can categorize wines based on their body to make it easier to find and discover what you like. For example, Syrah tastes very full-bodied up front and typically has a very subtle finish, whereas Nebbiolo starts out light and bright and builds to more intense tannin as the flavor evolves in your mouth.

FINAL CONCLUSION:

Quality level :

Faulty

Poor

Mediocre

Acceptable

Good

Very good

Outstanding

Classic

Style :           

Old World                             New World

Oak (New,Old,Partial New oak ), Unoaked

Climat:

Cool

Moderate

Warm

Hot

Grape(s):

Vintage:

Country:

Level of readiness of drinking/potential for ageing:

Too young	Can drink now, but has potential for ageing
Drink now, not suitable for ageing	Too old	.

Balance: 

Unbalanced       balanced            well balanced

Texture:   

Poor            mediocre           good             very good              outstanding

Price category:

Inexpenive

Mid price

High priced

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