How-To - Wine Tasting; an Art and a Science using a Few Common Senses



Posted: Wednesday, June 10, 2009

by
http://www.squidoo.com/thewinecellar

In this particular how-to article, wine tasting techniques in regards of the senses most used will hopefully be entirely kept well in mind. The main point here is that it isn't solely the senses of smell and that of taste, but the sense of sight is another that does come into the activities, and is in fact the very first of these three which is employed in deciphering the elements of wines. Let us ponder all three of these, beginning right with the first that starts us off, the sense of sight. There are two immediate ways to judge wines for both clarity and body by sight, and they would be...

For judging clarity, we rely on the operation of our sense of sight. How to perform this in wine tasting is we inspect the color of red wines through the side of the glass, perhaps tipping the glass slightly for better judgment - we're focusing our concern upon the edge of the wine's meniscus here. If at the edge it is slightly dark, we can notice that it is a fairly young wine, although if the clarity of the color bears lighter than the rest, we can then declare that it is an older wine.

Concerning white wines, we now look down into the wine from above the glass, perhaps even swirling it about a bit, focusing our sight upon the sparkles to judge its clarity. With either red wine or white wine, gently tipping the glass or swirling the wine around within it, look to see if the wine stays a bit to the inside of the glass as it falls to rest. Some wines won't attract at all, but the more that it does, the greater the amount of body.

Next in this how-to guide on wine tasting, our operating with our sense of smell... "the nose knows", as has been told, and we want to take in the totality of the scent. Swirl your wine about in its glass just a bit of a while, in order to make airborne the aroma and then breathe it in deeply, but slowly into your nostrils. Mixed in and among the fruitiness or berry-like smells, you may also detect spice-laiden scents, as well as something kind of like chocolate - this is a young wine. Older wines smell more reminiscent of raisins and prunes.

The final point to make in this discussion of how-to wine tasting tips is the sense of taste. Both taste and smell are related, so now that you've snorted up a beak-full, drench your tongue with the wine, swirl it about within your mouth, maybe even gargling a little. This will wet the back of your throat and sinuses on order that your senses of taste and smell can work together. If the inside of your mouth has a sense of a dryness of feel, this is as a result of the tannin content of the wine. You'll certainly note the flavor of this more with the darker, deep red wines, most of all.

If you'd like to take the opportunity to understand a lot more about wine tasting, putting together a cheerful wine tasting party, copy down some free wine recipes, learn some wine making tips or desire to build a wine cellar, please feel free to peruse my website on wine information for a bit of info on these and other wine making related topics.

This Article has been viewed 19 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.
We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.