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SHORT TASTING COURSE

To taste a wine in enjoyable company is an easy experience which anybody can do. Basically, tasting is the experience of analysing and appreciating a wine’s smell and taste. Although we need to use every sense, taste is the most important followed by sight and smell. We should remember that the taste buds in the mouth can perceive 800 hundreds different wine components.

In an illuminated, quiet and adequate place, without smoke or noise, the taster should use an appropriate wine glass of thin and transparent crystal. The wine glass should be filled to a third part of its volume. If there are several wines, the order will be from white to red and from young to aged wine. It is important for the tasting to be done before eating so other flavours do not interfere in the wine’s tasting.

Sight, smell and taste are the senses needed for the tasting. SENSE OF SIGHT

The wine observation is very important since the aspect gives us an insight of some of its attributes.

The taster should look at the wine through the wine glass over a white surface so as to appreciate the colour, clarity (colour intensity and shade) and the texture.

Regarding the visual texture, if we look carefully when the wine is being served, we can see and hear how it drops into the wine glass. All of this gives us a first idea of the wine’s density, thickness and shape.

By shaking the wine glass in circles we can appreciate if the small drops slide down the glass’ sides with more or less speed. The wine drops are a signal of the wine’s glyceric and alcoholic level. At the same time, this is a good sign of the wine’s shape.

When tilting the wine glass we can see the wine’s depth and its border (where the wine meets the glass). Here we can see the wine’s colour and reflections as well as the wine’s brightness and transparency. The wine’s brightness indicates its age and health.

Regarding the colour shade, we can appreciate different hues depending on the wine’s age, variety, elaboration…

Whites: pale yellow, straw-coloured, greenish, golden...

Roses: Strawberry-pink, violet, salmon...

Red: purple, cherry, orangey-red...

The wine’s chromatic intensity is due to its abundant coloured pigments (anthocyans or flavones). This is also an indicator for the wine’s contents in polyphenols and thus, the wine’s shape and structure. When a wine has an intensive colour we talk about the wine’s high layer, we can also talk of medium and low layer.

SENSE OF SMELL

The smell works together with the taste sense permitting the perception of sensations through the nose.

There is a first stage where the wine is smelt without shaking the wine glass so as to perceive the most volatile aromas, which are called primary aromas (those coming from the grapes). These aromas are fruity and floral.

Next, the wine glass will be shaken in circles giving off second aromas which will be denser and are produced during the fermentation. We will also be able to appreciate the primary aromas. The predominant aromas will be fruity, floral, vegetable…

The third aromas are born while the wine is aged in wood barrels or during the ageing in the bottle. These aromas are vanilla, toasted aromas, coffee, coconut, tobacco...

We then take a small sip (without swallowing it) allowing air through our barely closed lips to favour the diffusion of aromas. When expiring through the nose, we can perceive even more aromas.

Once the wine glass is empty, the last drop will reveal new aromas when in contact with the air.

There are different aromas:

Animal: leather...
Balsamic and wood: pine, mint, vanilla...
Spices: pepper, cinnamon, paprika...
Floral: violet, rose, acacia...
Fruit: banana, apple, strawberry...
Lactic: milk, butter, yoghourt...
Vegetal: hay, moss, asparagus...

SENSE OF TASTE

After using the sight and smell senses we can appreciate three mouth stages:

Feeling: smoothness, roughness.
Thermic: wine’s temperature.
Savour: flavour perception.

The flavours can be:

Sweet flavour: from the sugar, alcohol and glycerine. These are identified at the tongue’s tip.
Acid flavour: given by the acid in the grapes and stimulated by the ferments (tartaric, citric...). These are identified by the lateral and bottom of the tongue.
Salty flavour: identified on the laterals and top of the tongue (mineral salts, salty acids...)
Sour flavour: identified at the throat end of the tongue (phenol compounds, tannins...)

The flavours can be perceived in the next stages:

Entrance: where the wine imposes a first impression in the tongue and in the palate.

These first impressions name the wine as ample, aromatic, intense...

In mouth: characterised by the perception at the same time of the wine’s temperature, viscosity, presence of carbonic gas and its roughness.

It is the proper tasting itself. It defines the wine as round, sharp, thick, structured...

Post taste: dominated by the tannins in the case of red wine. If the taste lingers, it is said that the wine is persistent.

The harmony of a wine results from the equilibrium between sweetness, on one side, and acid and bitterness on the other.

The equilibrium in white and rosé wines is based in the conjuction of acidity-alcohol (which provokes a soft and maybe sweet sensation) and grape or wood tannins (if the wine has been aged in oak barrels).

If it is a white young wine, we can appreciate freshness, smoothness and a bit of acidity as well as fruitiness proper of the grape variety.

If the white wine is fermented or aged in wood barrels, we can appreciate a slight wooden aroma, very equilibrated with the varietal characteristics and also a nice tannin touch.

The rosé wines are more structured due to the maceration process of the wine, with a touch of acidity and reminiscence of residual sugar and carbonic acid.

In white and rosé wines we can appreciate fruitiness, freshness and acidity.