A gentleman’s guide to tasting wine like a pro

The golden rule of tasting is simple, but this is how you get there

Wine tasting shouldn’t be an intimidating experience; it should be one of life’s ultimate pleasures. The golden rule of tasting is incredibly simple – first, look; second – smell; third – taste and then repeat.

Tasting wine is subjective; our palettes are not calibrated – we taste differently to one another but there are, of course, some easy tips that might sharpen up your skills.

Whilst you can make predictions about a wine by looking at it, it’s best to not make judgements on what you think it will taste like or, even worse, whether you might like it – bright pink rosés can still be dry, and deep dark reds can still be light bodied. Wait until you have done all the steps and don’t assume.

Not only does swirling make you look like you know what you’re doing, but it also releases essential aromas in the wine. These aromas will provide the basis for your tasting experience and by releasing them, you’re giving yourself a fighting chance of working out what they might be.

The nose is incredibly sensitive, but it can only pick up scents from memory. It’s important to train your nose up as much as possible in day-to-day life to improve your ability to recognise smells in wines. Some smells are easy, such as strawberries and cherries. But could you pick out what a gooseberry smells like? Or the difference of smells between marmalade and orange peel?

The caricature of a portly gentleman aggressively swashing Merlot round his mouth like Listerine is one that seems to define wine tasting. Sadly, it’s not the most attractive of actions but the truth behind it is that different parts of the tongue, mouth and even throat taste different things. It’s also important to get a little air in to bring out the flavours – a discrete Silence of the Lambs slurp will often do the trick and you will look a little more refined.

There’s no such thing (or certainly no common thing) as a ‘magic palette’. As with most skills, tasting ability improves rapidly with experience and trying different styles of wine is a crucial part of that. It can be tricky to convince that die-hard Bordeaux fan to mix things up on a Thursday evening, but it’s worth it. Go forth and conquer as many wines as possible, that’s the only that way will you learn the nuances of each… goodness that sounds like a rough job.

Mouth-feel/body: Alcohol is heavier than water, so wines with a fuller body are usually more alcoholic. Use words like ‘viscous’ if you really want to impress.

Tannin: Tannins come from the skins of the grape and give that mouth drying sensation. Wines high in tannins might be of that style, or they might need a little more ageing.

Acidity: It’s not only white wines that can be assessed for acidity. Acidic wines will make the mouth water, and sometimes it’s hard when wines have high tannins and high acidity to work out what is really going on.

Fruit flavours: Does what it says on the tin. These fruit flavours (be them berry, tropical fruits, stone fruit, citrus etc.) are often found in younger wines, and it’s no bad thing… producers may choose to make younger, ‘fruit forward’ wines.

Legs/tears: When swirling the glass, residual liquid can often stick to it creating what look like tears down the glass. Most often, this is an indicator of how much alcohol is in the wine, with higher alcohol wines often sticking the most.

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