When tasting wines, it is very important to know the winemaking, varieties, styles of wine, as well as intuition and imagination, as well as our feelings.
A person has five senses and a slightly more spiritual and contradictory sixth, which is intuition. Which ones do we use for wine tasting? Everyone. So I invite you to feel guilty all over yourself.
What does good or bad wine mean?
This is almost a philosophical question. We have to love this wine, and this is subjective, but there are also some objective factors that we must recognize. There are as many styles and varieties of wine as there are potential consumers. Of course, everyone can determine their preferences, regardless of the price of wine or its origin. The main thing is that we like the wine. It's as simple as that.
However, more generally, in any category or style, a good wine should be correct, well-made, pleasant, without any drawbacks. The variety should be expressed honestly and directly, it should also be a reflection of the place and time, the habitat called terroir in wine terminology, as well as the harvest-because no two vintages are the same, even minimal differences in climate lead to the final result in the bottle.
Some prefer heavier wines, others are lighter, some are sweeter, others with vertical and accentuated acidity. To begin defining the concept of a good wine, we need to make sure that it doesn't have any drawbacks, such as excessive tartness, oxidation, or strange tastes that don't match the variety. There is no other way to know if a wine is good or not, other than to taste it. Only by tracking each stage of the tasting can we feel its features or shortcomings.
Sense of vision
I like to play with wines, especially my favorites. Having a glass of my favorite wine in my hand, I often try to reproduce its color on paper with watercolors. This challenge is very relaxing and allows you to feel more connected to the visual side of the wine. Because of my work, I am lucky enough to visit hundreds of vineyards a year. In Poland and neighboring countries, during a short vacation, you can visit a vineyard and experience the vineyard for real. Seeing the vineyard with your own eyes is something magical and unforgettable. This allows you to understand why the wine is so precise and beautiful. Visit the vineyard, inspect the grapes and leaves, fill your eyes with their amazing colors.
Vision and observation are also the first stage of wine tasting. We see the color of the wine, its brightness and transparency. The color of a young wine can be compared to the color of an old crop, which takes on different tones. Looking at a wine also means appreciating the beauty of its various nuances.
The right wine should be shiny and clear. Gloss determines the condition of the wine, its freshness and whether it corresponds to its age. For example, if you find a red wine that is young, from a recent vintage with excessive brown undertones, it means that something is wrong and the bottle probably suffered from oxidation problems.
Remember that color gives us several signals. A light-bodied wine will have a light tint. A more concentrated wine will have a more intense color. Of course, each variety has its own color, but let's look at the viscosity of wine, which depends on the sugar and alcohol content. A pale, lousy wine can raise some suspicions about its quality. A glass of wine should alert you when the wine is coming.:
- opaque
- frosted glass
- for white wine color "Blue"
- it is too brown for red wine, with the exception of red wines from very old vintages
Sense of hearing
Yes, you can hear the wine! When we uncork a bottle, that characteristic cork sound is when we decant wine or when we pour wine into a glass. Try serving three glasses with different amounts of wine poured, and when you hit them with a metal object, I assure you, they will sound completely different. You can really create music with wine. First of all, hear the vines and especially the magical rustle of leaves in the wind. I recommend going to the vineyard for a day and tasting the wine sitting among the vines, blending in with nature. It is a transcendental experience.
Sense of smell
We can smell wine through our noses. This is one of my favorite tasting stages. This sense allows us to distinguish between flavors. I always invite you to collect scents, both in bottles and in memory. Professional winemakers and tasters practice the olfactory stage to recognize as many flavors as possible. Each of us has something called a flavor library or flavor memory, so even without seeing anything, we can recognize with our nose which neighbor is baking apple pie and who is cooking barbecue today. To expand this library of scents, we need to smell things. When we cook, we shop at the grocery store. Only by practicing can we force this trio: nose-mouth-brain, which recognizes many flavors.
Every time we talk about different varieties, we describe a unique aroma profile. We can create our own set for practicing olfactory memory. Place flower petals, essential oils, herbs and spices, fruit skins, and organic materials such as leaves, earth, leather, etc. in jars. For example, think of red and black fruits, from strawberries to cherries and figs, and see how these flavors are expressed in wines.
To take care of the nose, it is important that it is clean and healthy, as this helps us breathe well and, as a result, better perceive odors. So I don't smoke, use minimal perfume, avoid draughts and air conditioning, and always take a spray of sea water to moisten the nasal mucosa.
We have different flavor families that are specific to individual wine varieties and styles.
When tasting wine, you should pay attention to the following aspects::
- nose intensity
- the sincerity of scents
- bouquet quality-aromas that should arouse suspicion and may indicate a lack of wine:
Cork Flavor: This unique aroma resembles that of roasted hazelnuts and is produced by precursors found in cork oak.
Aromas of acid, vinegar, rusty apples, fermentation smells.
Yeast or oil flavorings.
The smell of acetone, nail polish, chemical solvents that contain ethylene.
Manufacturing errors with a high sulfur content, which you will recognize by the smell of rotten eggs, glue, or manure.
When we read a wine tasting note or label, we find several names of flavors on the counter-label. What do they mean? Where are they from? Of course, you have often noted that in the descriptions of wines there is that the wine has aromas of red fruits or chocolate. I assure you that in the vineyards, no one adds chocolate chips or fruit juice to get the most complex bouquet. Each wine has its own bouquet, consisting of several molecules.
Aroma molecules have their own characteristics and chemical composition. And, for example, a molecule with the composition "rose fragrance" is present in a rose flower and can be in wine. All flavors in wine come from three sources, the strain from which the wine is made. Secondly, they come from the terroir-different types of soil can transmit different flavors to wine, for example, a soil rich in calcium gives it a mineral note, while a soil rich in iron gives it the flavor of blood or raw meat. And finally, the third source of aromas is the winemaking itself with notes of fermentation and aging in barrels.
In the process of aromatic education, you should learn to divide them into aromatic families. There are different scents in the same family, but they are always very similar. As wine experts say, you can recognize 500 different flavors, some believe that, perhaps, it is 700. I can assure you that if you learn one or two from each family about wine, you can be proud of yourself and continue this education.a game of feelings. So we have floral, herbal, earthy, essential, fruit flavors, etc.
Sense of taste
Jdiek-the main organ of the sense of taste, where the taste buds responsible for tastes are located: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and umami. Perhaps this is the most important of feelings. Combining these five flavors allows us to see an infinite number of new combinations.
To take care of it, it is necessary to observe oral hygiene. In ancient Indian Ayurvedic medicine, one of the stages of the morning routine is scraping the tongue. This treatment removes toxins, bacteria, and dead cells from the tongue to prevent bad breath. It supports the health of the oral cavity and digestive system and, above all, improves the sense of taste, which is so important for all wine lovers.
Our taste buds don't lie. If we add our knowledge to this analysis, we can fully understand the wine. At the taste level, we should feel the taste of the wine: acidity, sweetness, aromas of the strain, consistency (quality and quantity of tannins), physicality (concentration of all these elements) and firmness in the mouth. At this stage, it is easiest to distinguish an iconic wine from a good one. Good wine improves your mood. It's nice and cozy. We liked it! For the icon, it all goes deeper. It's a wine that often makes you think, meditate, and sometimes even cry and dream. It awakens our emotions because it is more subtle and transcendental.
Sense of touch
The skin is our biggest organ. We all have tactile sensitivity, which allows us to perceive, feel, touch, and recognize the texture (smooth or rough), hardness (soft or hard), and temperature (cold or hot) of things.
The skin is a thin layer that covers and protects our body. How to touch wine? Literally wet your fingers or hand with wine. In this way, we can appreciate how warty lines are marked by tannins. We can also leave a trace of wine in the notebook. There are no restrictions. Imagination is the limit. There are artists who soak their brushes in various red wines and create beautiful paintings in reddish tones.
If you can visit the vineyard in the autumn months, when the grapes are ripe, knead the berries with your fingers, see their shades, touch the pulp, feel their juiciness.
A sense of intuition
Yes, it is true that taste makes us choose some wines over others, but the perception of wine is also something instinctive that cannot be described in words. This spiritual aspect of wine, which for some is divine, makes wine so special, so elusive, so infinite. They want to know what defines and distinguishes good wine from the highest quality. This is the word BALANCE. In wine, especially in its taste, we must find the perfect balance of all its elements: between the acidity and sweetness of the fruit, the concentration of tannins and softness in the mouth, as well as the proportion of alcohol and freshness. When a sublime harmony reigns, like a symphony that does not lack a single note, we are dealing not only with good wine, but also with world-class wine.
Themed tasting ideas
I don't need to convince anyone that wine tasting at home is fun and learning at the same time. Therefore, I invite you to conduct various thematic tastings and deepen your knowledge of wines.
In short, a thematic tasting is nothing more than choosing a variety, style, brand or vintage wine and setting the format of 3 to 6 wines to see their similarities and / or differences. My theoretical knowledge is very good. We can read articles about variations, names, and styles. We also play with a mix of wine and food. However, without tasting various wines, it is impossible to deepen our knowledge.
Ideas:
- Choose the same variety, but from different countries
For this horizontal tasting, open the aforementioned wines from the current and previous crop and look at the evolution of the wine. Watch how winemakers interpret different origins and strains. This is a very useful exercise. Write down your ideas about the taste of each wine and the type of dish you would like to try it with.
2. Choose two or three wines from the same vineyard and variety
3. Choose the same wine, but different varieties
If you have several vintages of the same wine, you can organize a vertical tasting. This means that you will taste the same wine, but for different years. Although there may be more, choose at least three different crops. Make sure that the wines are at the correct temperature. If any of the vintages are very old, at least five years old, it is always recommended to decant them an hour before tasting, so that the wine can breathe.
This tasting format is very educational, as it allows you to see the evolution of the wine and observe its changes. Many experts recommend tasting wines from the youngest to the oldest. However, there are winemakers who prefer to do the opposite. The older wine is more delicate, while the younger one still has fruity notes and very expressive tannins. It's up to you. Both methods are correct. Exercise: Given different fragrance families, take a look at how their profile has evolved over the years.
4. Choose the same variety from the same region, but from different producers
Each of these thematic tastings can be blind (the tag is closed) or open. It depends on your preferences. This will allow you to truly understand varieties, origins, and crops. In addition, I invite you not only to taste the wines, but also to discuss them with any available information. I assure you that each taster will have their own opinion and will provoke a delicious and emotional discussion with a glass of wine in hand, of course.
Junior specialist in Marketing Communications and PR.
He is a graduate of the University of Warsaw and the Main School of Agriculture. We have been in the HoReCa industry for more than 10 years. For many years, he has been associated with the Trip group, Sobienie Royal Golf and Country Club, and the Florentin Restaurant in Warsaw.
She graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the Warsaw Technical University with a degree in Architecture for the Knowledge Society and Visual Communications at the Polytechnic University of Milan. A specialist in creating a mood. She has gained experience at home and abroad at numerous international seminars (Seville, Lisbon, Florence), fellowships at La Sapienza (Rome), etc. m.in. in Carmi e Ubertis and ADM Milano.
A manager with many years of experience in the cosmetics, food, and children's industries. During his career, he was associated with such companies as: L'Oreal, Samsung, Danone-Nutricia, Unilever. During his professional life, he was responsible, among other things, for the development of e-commerce sales and content in Poland and the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. 
