This is more intended to people that are relatively new to wine, but I think if you are already a wine connoisseur, you will still learn a little something, as I will try cover why each step is important with some details. In course number 2, I will cover why it’s important to take time to taste wine properly, so stay tuned for this, coming out tomorrow.
Essentially, for tasting and appreciating wine, we try to use as many of our sense as possible. We use them all in fact, except for hearing. There is not a lot you can do with wine about hearing, or perhaps play your favorite tune as you’re tasting!
So, the first phase to tasting wine properly, is to spend a little bit of time looking at it…
Part 2: The nose
Smelling you wine, is were the real appreciation starts. There is pleasure to be had into smelling something right? Think of smelling a flower for example, or the smell of your grand ma’s apple crumble coming out of the oven!
Taking a little bit of time to smell a wine is part of the pleasure of tasting wine, as it generally smells good with lots of different fruity, floral, or spicy notes.
Secondly, smelling a wine also prepares you for tasting it. Like the appearance, it gives you an indication of what you are about to be tasting.
If I take this white wine versus this sweet wine.
This is crisp and vibrant, floral with light notes of lemon.
While this other one is full of tropical fruit aromas.
So I know that here I should probably expect a crisp white with loads of acidity, while here is probably going to be a sweet wine.
So when I taste, I won’t be surprised, and I should really enjoy it to the fullest.
Before sniffing a wine, you would normally swirl it like this, or like that. This is to evaporate the aromas that are dissolved in the alcohol so you can smell them better in your wine.
Watch the Presentation Video of Julien’s 3.5 Minute Wine School: https://youtu.be/mW-rKpCV0-8
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