One of my favourite subjects! Why? Because being a flight attendant for quite some time, gave me the opportunity, I’ll say, to see a lot of people drinking. Drinking water, sodas, beer, whiskies, and of course wine. Juice is a whole other subject in aviation industry! J
Therefore, drinking vs tasting can take a new perspective with any kind of beverage. Imagine what can do to wine!
For example, people drinking their water in seconds, you call them “thirsty”. Give them some more.
If they are drinking their sodas in seconds, “sugar addicts”. They need some water too.
Those drinking their beers/whiskies in seconds, shame them “alcoholics”. Water is what they need for sure.
But people drinking their wine in seconds, you call them “Oh, my… how dare you? You uncivilised creature!”. Give them more wine and show them how to taste it!
And all this drama is happening because wine has a soul. Breathing, living, developing and therefore is more complex. You can’t just drink wine; you can’t just shove it down glass after glass, where you use only your mouth and occasionally your hand to hold the glass.
In short, you taste wine. You use three senses, but most importantly, you think.
Menia… relax!
It’s true, though. You’re missing out a lot, if you just have it for its alcoholic pleasures.
Slow down and pay attention! Drinking vs Tasting is an art!
Adding to that, tasting involves seeing, smelling and then tasting wine. A look at the appearance can give you so much information; Young? Old? Sweet? Maybe higher alcohol? Thin-skin grape?
Then you move to the nose. That one is like reading a book; Fruits? Oak? Maturation? Soil? Maybe faults?
And then and only then do you actually use your mouth.
Let’s get a bit deeper in it.
Appearance
Can you see through the wine? Is it clear enough? Probably that can tell you your wine has been filtered and fined or not.
Now, tilt your glass – hopefully half full or even less – and look at it against a white surface, a white paper, a tablecloth. Check the colour at the edge and in the middle. Now swirl your wine in the glass and observe how quickly or slowly does the liquid form a thin wall. How quickly or slowly does the wine flow back down. With practice, you’ll notice that all these observations can give you a lot of information.
Nose
Next, swirl again. Hold your glass from its base on the surface of the table and swirl. If you feel adventurous and you wear a dark colour blouse, swirl your glass in the air. Fancy! Yet, essential! This will let your wine breathe, as we say. Your wine spent quite some time closed in the bottle and now it’s the time for it to come in contact with some oxygen. This will release all the odour molecules you can confidently describe with whatever your imagination lets you uncover. There are so many aromatic compounds, so if your wine smells like wood and vanilla and butter and lemon at the same time, simply embrace it, cause it’s true.
Above all, be prepared to what you might smell. Be bold and put your nose in the glass. Listen to what other people smell and try to see if you can smell it too.
As you’ll read on a previous post, the nose will also show you any possible faults in the wine. Either due to storage conditions, winemaking process or bottle closure. In such a case, no need to continue tasting it, unless you’re really curious and you wanna add this experience to your tasting CV.
Taste
And here comes the action of your last sense. Take a small sip in your mouth and play it around. Feel its texture, its acidity, its tannins. Your mouth will reveal the tastes, sweet, salty, bitter, sour or savoury. You’ll be able to even reveal more aromas through your mouth, that we can now call flavours. Cause you know already that you can actually smell with your mouth!
Observe if the aromatics you got in the nose are the same as in the palate. Be open to discover even more.
Think
Nonetheless, in tasting, thinking is probably the most important step of the process. I’m pretty sure you’re not thinking that much when you simply drink. But it’s the time you need to combine all the information you gathered. Is the wine balanced? Is there something that caught your attention more? Would you try this wine again? What would you eat it with? How did you like it? Would you consider it as of good quality?
Wine Tasting, as you see, is a process of sensory evaluation. It’s an overall appreciation of the complicated liquid you have in your glass, and it is a lifestyle. Well shared with friends and wine aficionados. A ritual that I absolutely love, only because it’s one of the big pleasures of life.
Oh, and it shouldn’t take you more than few minutes to do the whole mantra look, smell, taste, think!
Drinking vs Tasting: Make it your lifestyle from now on, and start tasting your wine!
A whole new world will appear in front of you.
Enjoy!