In the first of our Wine Club Guides we look in more detail at how to taste wine in order to get the maximum pleasure from your glass, looking at appearance, smell, how to develop your tasting skills plus some tasting basics.
So pour yourself a glass and check out our top tips below...
“The first thing you must do is look at the wine.” Joe Wadsack, R&J Wine Expert
Pour the wine into a glass (obviously!) – ideally one of our professional tasting glasses (check out the link on the right for details) – until it is about a third full. Tilt the glass, at an angle of about 45°, against a white surface. That way you can enjoy the range of colours from the centre to the rim.
A young red – like the San Pedro Rioja from the TV tasting case - will have a pinkish-purple rim, an old wine a tawny-brown edge. A light-bodied red will be less deep in colour than a fuller-bodied one.
Crisp, light whites – like The Club’s Sauvignon de Touraine - will be pale straw in hue, older, richer or sweeter whites are more golden.
Generally, white wines gain colour with age, while red wines lose it. The colour of your wine can also give clues to grape varieties, place of origin and age, while a wine in good condition should be appetisingly clear, not cloudy-looking or hazy.
“You give it more air, sloshing it in the glass!” Joe Wadsack, R&J Wine Expert
The smell of the wine is known as the nose or aroma – bouquet is sometimes used for older, more mature wines. A wine’s nose is even more important than its taste as over half of its flavour is contained in its volatile aromas and you can’t taste a wine if you can’t smell it.
And as we learnt on the show, giving the wine a vigorous swirl in the glass is the first step in helping to release all those aromas. It aerates the wine – putting the wind up its aroma, so to speak! Stick your nose right down into the glass and sniff deeply.
At first you may find you can’t put a name to smells you do recognise, or there may be too many smells to untangle, or even that the wine smells of nothing much at all! Our Sauvignon from Touraine could be described as ‘vegetal’ – fresh, cut grass aromas! Just jot down your thoughts while you can – your first impression will always be the strongest; after that your nose will gradually tire.
“Golden rule number one: get a good gobful!” Joe Wadsack, R&J Wine Expert
At last... time to taste. To get your tastebuds working, you need to bathe your mouth with wine – so take a good sip, filling the mouth about a third full (same principle as the glass). The tongue can detect only very basic flavours – sweetness at the tip, acidity at the sides and bitterness at the back.
The real business of tasting anything goes on in the cavity at the back of the mouth. So the idea when tasting is to get the fumes from the wine in your mouth to rise up into this nasal cavity (it is really part of the nose).
Notice its initial taste (its attack), what flavours develop next (its middle palate) and its finish. How long do the flavours last? Is it a young tannic wine with enough fruit to age or a smooth, fruity red for drinking now? Are the rich flavours of a white wine balanced by enough acidity, or is the acidity of a fresh white balanced by sufficient fruit?
Remember: at this point you do not have to spit out – unless the wine is disgusting! (and therefore not one of ours!)
Keep your nose alert.
Try to remember everyday smells and give them names. These will make up your tasting vocabulary.
Know your fruit flavours.
It pays to be to be familiar with blackberries, cherries, blackcurrants, raspberries, strawberries and plums for red wines, and with lemons, limes, apples, apricots, peaches and tropical fruits for whites. Don’t worry about “sunbaked paving stones” just yet!
Make it a tasty habit.
If you’re having a glass of wine with supper, consider how the food and wine interact. Do their flavours enhance each other, or knock each other out? Even if it’s just a drink after work, pause to look at the wine, smell it and taste it. You don’t have to draw attention to yourself and start gurgling and spitting like a capuccino machine!
Jot it down
Make notes... Keep a written record of the names of the wines you have tasted and what you thought of them. Then you can refer back.
Get together with friends and taste.
Hold your own tastings at home. Everyone can bring a different bottle. A good way to start is by comparing the differences between two or three grape varieties of how they compare from different countries – like Sauvignon from the Loire against Sauvignon from New Zealand and an Australian Chardonnay say for contrast. The opportunities are endless – and fun.
“Go and try something completely different – that’s how to explore!” Susie Atkins, R&J Wine Expert.
Palate – the taste of the wine in your mouth.
Sweetness – or lack of it. The first sensation on the tip of your tongue. It needs to be balanced with acidity or it will be cloying.
Acidity – makes the wine taste nice and crisp. You taste it in the sides of your tongue. For balance, it needs sweetness, alcohol or body, otherwise the wine will be unpleasantly tart.
Tannin - is the mouth-drying substance found in red wines. It helps give the wine body and weight.
Alcohol – levels vary from wine to wine. The higher the alcohol, the rounder (and warmer with reds) the wine will feel in your mouth.
Fruit – a wine’s flavour comes from grapes but rarely tastes of them! Flavours resemble fruits – from red berried to tropical.
Weight – whether a wine is light, medium or full-bodied. How heavy the wine feels in your mouth.
Length – does the wine leave a lingering taste in your mouth after you have swallowed it?
Balance – an unbalanced wine tastes as though it is lacking something. Balance is all about the relationship between sweetness, acidity, fruit, body, tannin and alcohol.
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