So how do sommeliers usually taste wine? And what kind of wine is good wine?
1. Look at the wine label
The wine label allows us to quickly understand the alcohol content of the wine, the country and region where it is produced, the year, and the grape variety, so as to roughly judge its style.
Master these methods and techniques of drinking red wine, so that your taste buds have an extraordinary feeling
2. Pour only one-fifth of the wine
The pouring wine is only about one-fifth full, and this position is generally the position with the widest cross-section of the wine glass. No matter how full it is when you usually drink it, once you want to taste the wine, you must not pour too much. Too much wine is not conducive to the subsequent steps of shaking the glass, and the wine is easy to spill out if you shake it too vigorously.
Master these methods and techniques of drinking red wine, so that your taste buds have an extraordinary feeling
3. Hold the cup only by the cup foot or base
Pinching the cup foot or base not only looks elegant and noble, but also looks very professional. Usually when we hold the cup, we try to avoid the contact between the hand and the wall of the cup, so as not to let the temperature of the hand affect the temperature of the wine.
Master these methods and techniques of drinking red wine, so that your taste buds have an extraordinary feeling
4. Observe the color and clarity
After posing, it officially entered the rhythm of the product.
But before you put the wine into your mouth, you must first look at the color. When observing the color, you should place the wine glass against a white background, such as white paper or a white tablecloth. By observing the color of the wine, you can also grasp some information.
Different grape varieties have different shades of color. In addition, as the wine ages, the natural pigments in the wine will gradually change, and its color will also change accordingly.
The color of red wine will gradually change from dark to light, and the color will develop from the original red or red-purple to orange, and finally it can even become brick red. On the other hand, the color of white wine is getting heavier and heavier, and the color gradually develops from yellow-green or yellow to brown. Georgia's most distinctive Qvevri clay pot white wine has a rare amber color from the beginning of ageing.
Of course, most of the time we drink with the information of the year and variety, so this step is over quickly, but in blind tasting, by observing the color, you can roughly guess its age and variety scope.
Master these methods and techniques of drinking red wine, so that your taste buds have an extraordinary feeling
5. Smell the aroma
When we feel the aroma, we all habitually add the action of shaking the glass, because shaking the glass can make the wine and the air contact to release more aroma.
However, shaking the glass is also a taboo. Don't shake a glass of wine you just got, because some relatively light smells, such as weak floral fragrance or small flaws, are easily covered by other smells during shaking. So when you first get a glass of wine, at least smell it before shaking it.
Master these methods and techniques of drinking red wine, so that your taste buds have an extraordinary feeling
You may find it difficult to describe the aroma. The tasters are probably very talented, and the tasting words will pop out one by one. But in fact, everyone is a mortal. By training their memory ability of aroma later, they can meet the requirements of being a sommelier.
And it is not as difficult to describe the aroma and taste as you think. Just feel and taste the taste of a wine carefully, and then choose fruit flowers or other things that are similar in flavor but more common in life to describe. To do this, friends who often go to fruit and vegetable stores or perfume stores have an advantage. If you disagree, pick up the fruit and smell it.
Master these methods and techniques of drinking red wine, so that your taste buds have an extraordinary feeling
Generally, wines have various types of fruit aromas, and sometimes, floral, spice, nutty or toasty (toast, vanilla, caramel, coffee, etc.) flavors. When describing, choose the two or three most characteristic aromas to describe.
6. Tasting
When tasting, one of the things that wine tasters often do is to take a sip of wine, and then repeatedly inhale through the mouth to make a "gargle" sound, keeping the wine in the mouth for more than 8 seconds. The process of inhalation will allow the air to enter the mouth, further contact with the wine liquid to oxidize, release and volatilize the last batch of aroma molecules, so that the wine liquid in the entire mouth rolls up and touches every corner.
Master these methods and techniques of drinking red wine, so that your taste buds have an extraordinary feeling
During the tasting period, we can intuitively feel the tannin, acidity, body, aroma and so on of the wine.
If you can understand and feel these concepts accurately, then congratulations, your taste buds have enough sensitivity.
Tannin: The body is tannin, which is the flavor substance behind the so-called "astringent" taste in wine. It is also the main thing that brings structure to a red wine. Of course, its quality is also high and low. When tasting wine, we pay attention to its concentration and texture thickness. High-quality tannins can cover the tongue like velvet, while some poor ones will give people a rough feeling. The high tannin content of Qvevri wines in clay pots made in the traditional craftsmanship of Kakheti, a famous region in Georgia, due to the long-term contact with the grape skin stems, forms the characteristic flavor of these wines.
Acidity: "Acidity" refers to the level of tartaric acid in a wine. The high acidity imparts a refreshing, stimulating feeling that instantly whets the tongue and gives a wine a long aftertaste and a fresh, non-greasy taste. Some Georgian wines are precisely characterized by high acidity, such as dry sparkling wines, Tsolikouri, Tsitska, Tsinandali wines, etc.
Wine body: It is the weight or heaviness of the wine itself in the mouth. Those wines with more body, lower acidity, and higher alcohol content tend to be fuller-bodied. Conversely, the lighter the taste, the higher the acidity, and the lighter the wine will be. Georgian wines have both body and feel.
Feeling them is the basis for judging whether a wine is a good wine.
So the question is, what is good wine?
From the perspective of objective quality alone, a good wine needs to meet a set of criteria, which is called BLIC, namely Balance, Length, Intensity and Complexity. Speaking of which, this set of standards also applies to coffee and tea tasting.
Balance: This is the basic premise for a bottle of wine to bring pleasure. Any element in a balanced wine, including aroma, tannin, acidity, sweetness, and alcohol content, will not appear too deliberately prominent, and a good wine must be is a comprehensive presentation. Georgian wines are balanced and harmonious on the palate, and are balanced on the basis of richness on the palate.
Aftertaste: refers to the length of time the aroma remains in the mouth after swallowing or spitting it out. In wines, good acidity is often necessary for a long aftertaste. The Qvevri terracotta white and red wines are made in the traditional Kakheki process with a long aftertaste.
Intensity: Intensity refers to the richness and concentration of various aromas. The words we often use to praise eating, such as mellow, full, and fragrant, are all manifestations of richness. Georgian wines made with 100% single-variety Saberavi grapes are generally full-bodied and of outstanding quality.
Complexity: Refers to the diversity and layering of aromas in a wine. Simple wines may only have fruity flavors, but wines with extremely high complexity will have many layers. Whenever you smell some aromas, you will find them again. New things. Feel the complex aromas and layers of Sabellawi dry red wines.
Whether a wine is a good wine depends on whether it exhibits a richness, complexity, and a long aftertaste and a balanced wine body that matches the characteristics of its variety. But to feel these contents accurately, it takes a certain amount of training and accumulation.
Master these methods and techniques of drinking red wine, so that your taste buds have an extraordinary feeling
7. Finally spit the wine
You may ask, why spit wine?
Please imagine such a scene, you are participating in a tasting party, there are 50 good wines at the reception, and your drink capacity is 3 glasses, you choose to drink 3 glasses and then become unconscious or vomit after tasting it. Try 50 great wines.
In fact, once a wine enters the mouth, it already presents most of her flavor characteristics. And after spitting it out, you can also fully feel the aftertaste of this wine. The feeling of this wine is not much different from spitting it out and swallowing it.
Therefore, in order to maintain their professionalism, everyone spit out wine during wine tastings, wine classes, and wine tasting competitions. Of course, if it's just a private dinner with friends, there's no need to vomit.
Master these methods and techniques of drinking red wine, so that your taste buds have an extraordinary feeling
Finally, after you have mastered the tasting posture, if you have stricter requirements on yourself, in addition to saying that it tastes good or not, you can also try to comment on the wine. However, when making comments, avoid using too many subjective descriptions, such as "this wine has the taste of my first love". This type of comment will get ridiculed. A wine tasting note doesn’t need to be rhetorical, it needs to be visual and specific enough for others to empathize with.
