How to taste wine

How to taste wine

When you picture someone tasting wine, what comes to mind?  A wine professional, perhaps, working their way through a line up of wines, noisily slurping and then spitting out each wine?

That’s one way of tasting, for sure, but it is only one way.  We all taste things all the time, every day – from our morning cereal and cup of tea to the Friday night take-away curry.  Probably what we don’t do, most of the time, is pay attention to what we’re tasting.  By being alert to the smells and tastes we experience, we can train ourselves to become better tasters and to appreciate differences that we hadn’t noticed before.  We can’t all become experts - but we can all get better.  Read on for my step by step guide.

Look

We taste with our eyes – think about how much you look forward to eating something in a restaurant that’s been attractively presented.  Looking at a wine will give you the first clues as to what the wine tastes like.

Look at the colour and intensity of the wine in the glass.  White wines get deeper in colour as they age, so a white wine that is pale is likely to be younger.  Older wines, especially concentrated dessert wines, are usually more golden, even amber in colour.

Red wines, by contrast, become lighter in colour as they mature.  The youngest red wines will generally be purplish in colour, moving to ruby, then garnet with age.  Venerable old wines continue on to brick-red or mahogany as they mature gracefully.

Smell

Smelling a wine is, arguably, the most important part of tasting.  Our noses are incredibly sensitive to a wide range of smells and aromas.

Swirl the wine in your glass, then have a couple of good sniffs.  Assuming the first impression is pleasant and the wine is not faulty, you can start thinking about what it actually smells of.  This is something that some people find easier than others – but practice is really the key to improving.

Most wines will have some kind of fruity smell – citrus and apple are common for white wines; red or black fruit for red.  In addition, there is a whole array of other kinds of aroma that you might find – something spicy, like vanilla perhaps, is common in wines that have been oaked.  The sauvignon blanc grape is often notable for its gooseberry aromas – which some people might find redolent of cat’s pee instead, or even sweaty onion.

And here’s the point – one person’s cat’s pee is another person’s gooseberry.  Tasting is, in the end, personal.  If you can smell sweet corn in a wine, then let no man (or woman) say you can’t.

Taste

OK, down to business – actually taste the wine.  Take a sip, move it around your mouth, then swallow.  Spitting is definitely needed if you will be tasting quite a few wines, to keep your critical faculties tuned, if nothing else.  However, sometimes, it’s best not to – guests at a dinner party might think it a bit odd – so judge what’s appropriate for the occasion.

There are essentially two elements to think about when tasting – the structure of the wine and its flavours.  Structure relates to the elements that give the wine its overall shape – namely dryness (or sweetness), acidity, body or weight, tannin (for red wines only) and length.

Most wines we drink in this country are broadly dry.  You can sense sweetness on the tip of your tongue.  Acidity is more of a sensation than a taste – it gives the wine freshness and zip and leads to a mouthwatering sensation.  As you move the wine around your mouth, think about the sense of weight of the wine – most reds are fuller-bodied than white and have a more mouth-filling sensation.  Tannins are the substances in red wines that can be unpleasantly drying, reminiscent of stewed tea.  In the right quantities, however, they give the wine some pleasant “grip” and a counterpoint to the fruit.  Length – how long the flavour of the wine lasts after you have swallowed it – is a good indicator of quality for a wine.

The flavours of a wine usually relate – and should relate – to the characters that you detected on the nose.  Think about the types of fruit or other characters you can sense.

Also think about:  does the wine change if you leave it in the glass for a while?  Has it got more or less interesting?  How intense are the aromas and flavours? Whether this is like other wines you have tasted?

Once you start actively tasting wine, you’ll soon be able to develop your own internal library of wine flavours, opening up a new world of wine to explore.

Here is a pair of current favourites.  Have a taste and see if you agree with my version:

Louis Latour Grand Ardèche 2011- around £10.99 from Milford Wine Centre, Tanner’s and Davy’s Wine Merchants

Maison Louis Latour is a name more usually associated with Burgundy, but here they have turned their skilful hands to getting the very best from Chardonnay grown in the more lowly region of the Ardèche.  8-10 months ageing in oak barrels has given this a subtle toasty note on the nose, as well as a nice mealy savouriness on the palate.  There is also appealingly fresh and ripe citrus and pear fruit.

Beaumont Bot River Mourvèdre 2009 - £18 from The Wine Society

Mourvèdre is a classic grape of Provence and southern France and widely grown, as Monastrell, in Spain – clearly it’s a warm climate variety, with a reputation for being happiest with a view of the sea.  The unattractively-named Bot River is in the region of Walker Bay in South Africa, renowned for its cool climate – but clearly not too cool as this is wonderfully ripe and dense with a pure dark blueberry flavour, and freshening acidity.    

US Presidential Election 2012 - and the winner is...

This is not a prediction of the outcome of the election, but the result of an entirely unscientific wine-based version of it, conducted by me here in Surrey with an electorate of just 80 people.

The “candidates” were all bottles of wine, their identities concealed; our electoral college, all members of wine groups belonging to the Fetcham University of the Third Age (U3A).  The voters were equipped with a wine glass, a ballot paper, their noses and tastebuds.

The tasters warmed up with a glass of something cold, pink and sparkling, then the first of the four wine “candidates” was poured.  At this stage of the campaign, all the voters had to do was to choose their favourite two wines and to vote for them, via the usual one person one vote method in a secret(ish) vote.  We were keen to uphold democratic principles.

Instead of the battle buses, debates and TV adverts, the candidates could use only what was in the bottle to get their message across.  We tasted each wine in turn and assessed their relative merits in terms of body, backbone, intensity, character, persistence and so on.  Good qualities for wines, but also, perhaps for those bidding for high office in one of the most powerful nations on earth.

Once all four wines had been tasted, our electorate cast their votes on their ballot papers which were collected in.  While the voters then tucked into a buffet supper, the tellers counted the votes and determined the result of our own version of the US Presidential Election.

When all the votes had been counted, one candidate emerged as a clear winner, thereby taking the President slot.  Second place was closer, with just a single vote separating the two wines competing for Vice President.  The final candidate was adrift by some distance.

Once the two winning wines had been announced, voters were given the kind of information you would expect at a wine-tasting – that is, what wines had they actually been tasting?  I think it’s fair to say that there was something of a surprise amongst the electorate that the cheapest two wines in the line-up had received the most votes.

  

This speaks volumes for the value for money and drinkability of the wines in question.  Out in front was The Winery of Good Hope Shiraz 2011, from South Africa and £7.25 from The Wine Society.  Voters responded to its lively spice-tinged fruit, depth of flavour and balance.

In second place came a white wine from the Abruzzo region of Italy.  The Contesa Pecorino 2011 (£8.95, also The Wine Society) had appealing pear fruit and juicy acidity.

These two wines managed to trump their much more expensive rivals.  

Château Mont-Redon Châteaneuf-du-Pape 2010 (£18.50, The Wine Society) was undoubtedly a well-made and good quality white (yes white Châteauneuf exists), but its relatively subtle fruit and understated charms failed to woo voters.  Fighting hard for second place, but ultimately falling short was Château Picque Caillou 2005, from Pessac-Léognan in Bordeaux (£18, The Wine Society).  Many loved its rich aromas of spiced red fruit and chocolate, but were less charmed by its angular body and dry finish.

What does this, perhaps shock, result show us?  Blind tasting puts wines on an equal footing and each one has to stand or fall on how it comes across to the taster – or voter – on the night.  If the wines had not been tasted blind, would the results have been any different?  I certainly think so.  We can’t help but be swayed by knowing what’s in the bottle, for good or bad.  A look at the label is worth a thousand sniffs, goes the saying.

So much for the wine tasting results.  I have promised you a wine election to mirror the US Presidential one.  Each of the wines tasted equated to a Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate in my mind – any guesses as to who is which?  Some lateral thinking is required!

The most straightforward one was, I think, the winner – the Winery of Good Hope Shiraz equated to Barack Obama.  It references the African origins of his Kenyan father, as well as Obama’s political tome The Audacity of Hope.

The formidable white Châteauneuf-du-Pape was intended to represent Vice President Joe Biden.  The wine’s name translates as the new palace of the Pope and Mr Biden is a notable Catholic.  Told you lateral thinking was required.

The third placed red Bordeaux represented Mitt Romney.  How so?  Romney’s Mormon faith is well documented and adherents often serve as missionaries in locations around the world for two years in their youth.  Romney’s mission took place in 1968 in Bordeaux – et voilà.

If you’ve been paying attention then you’ll know that Paul Ryan, Republican nominee for Vice President, must somehow be symbolised by an Italian white wine made from the Pecorino grape.  As well as being the name of a grape variety, Pecorino is also a type of cheese.  Paul Ryan is a native of, and still lives in, the state of Wisconsin, which makes so much cheese that its residents are colloquially known as cheeseheads.  Easy when you know I suppose.

So, in our entirely spurious election, Barack Obama was convincingly re-elected as President.  If this does come to pass then I will be the first to take the credit.

Rather more problematic is the election as Vice President of Paul Ryan to serve alongside him.  I’m not an expert on the American electoral system but, as far as I know, this would be unlikely, not to say impossible.  But if they can elect Ronald Reagan as President (twice), then never say never.