How to Taste Wine

If wine tasting technique had to be boiled down to just two words, they would be:

Have patience

The Technique

The process of tasting wine can be described in 5 simple steps:

See
Swirl
Sniff
Swish
Swallow

See

Enjoying the visible characteristics of a glass of wine is the beginning of the experience. You can often get a sense of the wine's taste from inspecting its color. As you hold the wine, look at its:

Color - Observe the hue of the wine against a white backdrop. White wines tend to range from pale green or yellow when young to deep amber when aged. Red wines redden as they age, from dark blue or purple to reds and then a russet brown. Lighter bodied wines (wines that feel light in your mouth) are also generally lighter in color.
Legs - Tip the wine glass just a bit to the side so the wine runs slightly up the side. Now set the glass flat again and watch the way the wine runs down the sides of the glass: certain wines form "legs" running down the side. This is a function of the wine's viscosity, or flow, and the rate of evaporation of the alcohol.

Swirl

Swirling wine accomplishes two things:

It aerates and oxidizes the wine
It helps increase and develope the flavor of the wine

Note: The less wine there is in the glass the more vigorously you can swirl it.

Sniff

As soon as you finish swirling the wine stick your nose into the glass as far as you can without actually touching the wine and take a deep whiff. The swirling action vaporizes some of the wine and makes its aroma (also called its nose or bouquet) rich and redolent.

As you smell the wine and just after, contemplate and try to name the aromas you discover (woody, fruity, smoky, fresh, breezy, etc.) At first this naming might be difficult and seem pointless. But after a while it will become easier, and you'll start to make connections between the aromas of different wines. With some wines, such as Pinot Noirs, many wine drinkers enjoy smelling them almost as much or even more than they enjoy drinking them.

There's another reason to smell your wine before you taste it. Your sense of smell is much more acute than your sense of taste. In fact, much of what you think of as your sense of taste is actually your sense of smell, as aromas from the food you chew reach your nose through the back of your throat. Recent studies have shown that 80% of what you experience as taste actually occurs in highly sensitive regions of your nose. If you find this hard to believe, think about how hard it is to taste anything when you're sick and have a stuffed-up nose. So when you sniff the wine in this way before drinking it, you're actually helping yourself taste it.

Swish

Now sip the wine and draw in some air. Then gently swish the wine around your mouth for a few seconds.

Wines are said to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. In each stage, a good wine will create subtly, or even not so subtly, different flavors, aromas, and textures in your mouth and nose.

The first flavor you will taste is the sweetness of the wine, because sweetness is primarily sensed at the tip of the tongue. As the wine moves backward over your tongue, the sweetness may or may not progress into sourness and, possibly, a tingling astringent bitterness in the hollows between cheeks and gums as the wine's acidity and tannins take hold. Meanwhile you will also sense the texture of the wine: its thickness or thinness, roughness or smoothness. As the air and swishing vaporizes and energizes the aroma of the wine, you will smell (through the neonasal cavity at the back of your throat) the wine's multiple aromas: buttery, earthy, floral, fruity, nutty, smoky, etc.

Swallow

When you swallow the wine, don't immediately reach for another sip or take a bite of food. Instead, concentrate on the aftertaste of the wine you've just swallowed. An acid crispness will linger on the deep back and sides of the tongue, cleansing the palate. The particular lasting flavor that the wine leaves is called its finish. Now go for that next sip, sniffing first if you so desire.

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