What's a Fair Go When Tasting Wine

Hi everyone,

What great news, ranked 1, 2 and 3 for my broad match phrase Love Food n Wine on Google out of nearly half a million competing pages.

Thank you everyone for your support in achieving this great result.

Today I want to add a further dimension to the blog especially as Spring is fast approaching and with it the beginning of the wine tasting season, with it's plethora of wine festivals, events and weekends.

I have developed a series, beginning in this post, which I will present over the next few weeks. Each Post will feature as its core "My Wine Log" with it's focus on matching food and wine. The current supplemental features "My Journey With Wine"and "The History of Wine" will be joined by this new feature and they will rotate every three posts or so with My Wine Log.

Called "The Dos of Wine Tasting At A Cellar Door" I hope it will help you get the best out of your wine tasting experience while being respectful of the viticulturists and wine-makers you will be talking to across the wine tasting counter.

I don't want to make this process so mystical that people reading it think that tasting wine is only for "wine snobs", but I am concerned that the "dumbing down" of the process robs us of opportunities to extend our enjoyment and knowledge of wine.

So let's begin our series on The DOS of Wine Tasting At A Cellar Door

1. DO remember that wine tasting is part of a transaction between you and the winery that you are visiting. Given that in 2005 there were over 1900 wineries in Australia, wine makers and marketers want to attract your attention to their vineyard to introduce you to one or more of the following:

a) Wine in general. Many of the bigger wine producers put a huge effort into finding ways of getting people to change or widen the range of alcoholic beverage they consume, while smaller producers concentrate on promoting the individuality and quality of their wine.

b) The vineyard experience. Many people are introduced to wine through the supermarket shelf but come to love and understand wine because of the amazing efforts of wineries and vineyards to attract you to the cellar door, by promoting wine and supplementing it with a range of other experiences such as visits to historic cellars or homes, dining experiences where wine is matched with locally produced and cooked food, beautiful settings such as wetlands, lakes or rivers, or festivals that promote an area or even a wine variety within an area.

c) A new variety or blend. If you already appreciate wine then the wine-maker will want to introduce you to blends that they have created or varieties they want you to discover. Often they will promote a new blend with special prices and the cellar door is the place to taste it in pristine condition, before you commit to buying.

d) A new vintage or access to hard to find back vintages. Viticulturists and wine-makers are eternal optimists, the viticulturist believes that the next growing season will produce the best grapes yet and the winemaker believes that with those grapes the best wine yet will be produced. They want you to give your opinion on that and you can often get the opportunity to taste a varietal or blend over a number of years, with the ensuing discussion about the similarity and difference between each.

Your positive response to that effort enables them to build a relationship with you which will enhance your ability to make informed decisions about your wine buying.

For our next DO, it might pay you to have a pen and a notebook with you, or if the cellar door provides takeaway tasting notes you can extend them by adding, commenting or disagreeing with the winemaker's assessment.

2. DO remember that your tasting experience involves a total experience with the wine. That is:

a) Presentation (How it looks)
Presentation is about the look of the wine; to enhance your enjoyment of the wine it is important that the winery provides you with the best glass they can, to assist your view of the wine. Many of the better wineries are now tasting from Riedel glasses from the Austrian crystal and glassware manufacturer. A good glass, and Riedel would say the correct glass is important in getting the best experience of your wine of choice, however the standard XL4 glass is what most wineries taste from and they are quite adequate.

The first attribute you would be looking at when you are considering appearance is wine clarity. Wine clarity is easier to assess in white wines and Rose's while red wines range from crimson to inky black and assessing clarity is a little more difficult. In most wineries you visit you will see that the counter is white or has white runners or mats on it. you can either stand your wine on the white surface and look down into the glass or hold the glass in your hand and tilt it so that the white surface is in the background. Clarity is the ability of a wine to absorb and reflect light, this is observed in different wines in differing ways, but for our purpose it can be considered to be the glow that wine gives off, a warmth and vitality from within the wine. If that glow is not present or the wine has any traces of film or cloudiness, it may indicate that something has gone wrong in the wine-making process.

The second area to assess in the wines appearance is it's color. This aspect of wine is divided between color hue and color intensity.

Color hue is assessed by trying to describe the color you see when looking through the eye (the thickest part in the glass) of the wine. This can be from pale green to golden honey or from light pink to inky black. If you talk with people about your observation of a wine's color you will be surprised by how many similar descriptions you will hear.

Colour intensity is the other part of wine color and describes the saturation of colour in a wine. How much of that colour is present. This is assessed on a scale of 1-10. Try talking with your friends, please don't bore them, about color intensity and you will find that they will have an opinion too and you might be surprised by how close together your opinions are.

You can also tell much about the age of a wine from it's appearance, with older wines developing a clear to khaki margin occurring between the wine and the surface of the glass.

b) In glass (The aroma, nose or fragrance)

People seek to ascertain the aroma of wine for two reasons.

Firstly to detect if the quality of the wine is acceptable and wine faults such as corking are not present. This is often seen when the person serving the tastings swirls the wine in the glass and smells it. This is a quick test of quality for a server, which may be followed by a taste and spit if they have any doubts, and usually occurs when they open a new bottle of wine or wine has been left open overnight.

Secondly, you will often see people who are tasting with their noses stuck above or even in the glass from which they are tasting. The practice is usually the taster trying to identify the aromas that the wine gives off either to confirm the wine-makers notes or to develop a "nose" which can then be readily verbalised to the aromas they are experiencing.
The swirling of the wine assists this process by distributing a thin layer of wine on upper parts of the glass, this is often described as opening up the wine as the thin layer is more readily aerated releasing the aroma of the wine.

Another point not often mentioned is the fact that holding the bowl of the glass in your palms, when tasting red wine in a cool climate can warm the wine slightly and release the aromas.

c) In mouth (sensations and flavours on the palate)
Here you get to actually taste the wine, but going through the previous two steps will have provided you with a huge amount of information about the wine you are tasting that would have otherwise been lost to you.

Before beginning to taste wine, it is important to clean the palate from any overwhelming tastes, such as toothpaste or mouthwash by eating a dry biscuit an olive or swishing some water through your mouth. It is also useful to taste the contents of your glass in two stages, the first sip to prepare your mouth by getting rid of all other tastes other than the wine. Some people spit the first sip for this reason. The second sip is then able to provide you with a tasting of the wine free of other flavours.

Firstly take a healthy sip of wine into the middle of your mouth. You can either let the wine rest behind your teeth and draw air through your mouth and over the wine, this aerates the wine releasing flavour or you can swirl it around the mouth so that the wine is in contact with all parts of it.

The purpose of this exercise is to look for and name key characteristics of the wine. Apart from the first these are presented in no particular order.

Sweetness or Dryness -
I believe the first sensation you get from wine is the sense of whether a wine is sweet or dry. At some stage we will look at how sweetness or dryness occurs, but suffice to say for now that you should be noting how sweet or dry it tastes to you. The intensity of sweet or dry will vary from person to person and that is why your opinion of the wine is so useful as feed back to the wine-maker. Judge on a scale of one for totally dry (like wood-chips) to 10 very sweet (like a mouthful of honey or treacle)

Acidity
All wine should have some acid and there is a balance to be found between sour (too much) and flat (to little). Acidity is essential in maintaining freshness in wine giving it some pizazz, but also integrating with the other wine components to shape the flavour as in aged premium red wines.

Alcohol -
is a pretty important component of wine, especially as a preservative, but excess alcohol will exhibit itself by a slight burning or more, in the throat when swallowed. Alcohol can also be seen on the glass in the form of "legs" which I will relate a story about and explain further at a later date.

Tannin -
is a natural preservative found in grape skins and stalks, it makes young red wines seem harsh and leaves the mouth feeling dry. Tannins are found in tea as well as wine, in both beverages they provide pigment to the beverage, as well as being a high source of antioxidants which gobble up those free radicals like Pacman on steroids. Tannin also plays an extremely important role in preserving high quality red wines that are made to age for many years.

Body -
is an indicator of how the wine feels in the mouth. Verdelho and Pinot Noir tend to feel quite light in the mouth while Chardonnay, Durif and Shiraz tend to be full and dense. So the progression for both reds and whites is light-bodied, to medium bodied, to full-bodied.

Fruit -
wine is made from fruit and especially when young, should have fruit flavours as a central component. The fuller the taste and intensity of the fruit in the mouth the better the wine. Premium wines will retain evidence of the fruit for many years, but younger wines are generally more fruit driven.

Finish -
The finish also known as length is the length of time that the taste of the wine remains in the mouth after the wine has been swallowed or spat out, and the pleasantness or otherwise of that taste. (to be continued.....)

If you are well organised you may be able to successfully develop a record of your journey with wine. If you would like some assistance can I recommend the following:

De Long's Wine Tasting Notebook