Liquid Bliss (lik’wid blis)

Sensory Guide to Tasting Wine

This tasting guide is designed with beginners in mind to help make the process of wine tasting less ‘technical’ and more ’sensual’. After all, tasting wine is an experience that engages and involves all of our senses…not just our taste buds. The following outlines the four basic steps of wine tasting to help you fully appreciate what is in the glass. I would suggest gathering a group of friends and having each one bring a bottle of wine that they enjoy and tasting them together. I believe in the importance of drinking wine with food, so have some simple and delicious things out to eat and notice how the wine interacts differently with different foods. Most importantly, remember that there are no right or wrong answers in wine. The fun part is figuring out what you enjoy and discovering new tastes!

Step #1- Sight
Start by picking up the glass and tilting it away from you using the stem. Move it towards a white surface (a piece of paper will do) and take a look at what is inside. Observe and notice the color of the wine. Is it rich and deep or pale and light? Does the wine have brownish tones in it, perhaps indicating age? Take note of the colors that you see. Swirl the wine around a bit and notice and the viscosity of the wine. Look at several wines next to each other and observe how the look different. We can get a lot of clues to how the wine will taste by what we see in the glass. For example, if the wine looks dense and not very opaque, that tells us that the wine will probally taste richer and more full bodied as well.

Step #2- Smell
Our sense of smell is definitely linked to our ability to taste. Think back to the last time you had a cold….did everything taste similarly dull? If we can’t smell, we can’t really taste well either. So let’s tune into our sense of smell. Start by swirling the wine in the glass to really bring the aromas to life. Take a long sniff and observe what you smell. Does it smell intense or weak? Does the nose remind you of anything? There are many different aromatic words that are used to describe wines, from apples to cherries. We all have our own memory ‘bank’ of smells ….try to tap into that and use words that make sense to you. Fruit flavors, spice, smoke; herbs and spices are all often used to describe the smell of wine. Don’t feel intimidated by “wine words”; instead compare what you smell to everyday scents. Does the wine smell like fresh-cut grass? Or perhaps it reminds you of the juicy mango you had on your last trip to the tropics? Observe, notice and get in touch with your sense.

Step #3- Taste
Now for the fun part….tasting the wine! Take a sip of wine and let it coat the entire mouth. If you would like to intensify the flavors try to draw a little air into the mouth and over the wine to ‘aerate’ it. Observe and notice what you taste. Is the wine dry, sweet, sour, acidic or bitter? How does the wine fill and coat the mouth? Do you feel a sense of dryness or astringency? Does the wine taste ‘hot’ in the mouth, indicating high alcohol content? What do the flavors of the wine remind you of? Tap into that ‘memory bank’ of tastes. Wine writers tend to use words like chocolate, blackberries and caramel for a reason….these are tastes that most people can immediately identify with. What tastes do you identify? After swallowing the wine, how long does the finish last in the mouth? Remember that there are no right or wrong answers in wine. Get creative and have fun.

Step #4- Assess and Appreciate
Tasting wine should be a sensual experience and each of our senses can give us different clues to help us understand what the wine is all about. Did the wine seem balanced, or did one element of it (ie sweet, acidic, bitter) seem to outweigh the others? Did the wine seem to linger on the palette or did it quickly disappear? All of the questions that we have asked ourselves during this process help us to determine what the wine is all about. The most important question that you can ask yourself about a wine is whether or not you liked it! Just like looking at a work of art, it is all about what is pleasing to you.

Have fun observing and noticing what is in the glass, through your senses of sight, smell and taste and then drink what you like! The more that we taste new wines and new flavors in general the more we expand and learn about our own palates….making the experience of drinking wine that much more pleasurable!