Calwineries

Tasting Wine

For the most part, wine tasting is done to assess the wine’s quality, either objectively or to your own personal taste. As long as you’re not making your living as a wine critic, it’s all about your personal feelings about the wine. There are several different ways that you can taste wine; by varietal, in wine verticals and blind tastings to name a few.

While tasting, you’re basically looking for the characteristics of the wine that you like and don’t like. This will help you train your palate, and also determine if you want to buy the wine or not. Sometimes it’s not possible, but it’s always best to taste a wine before you buy it.

While tasting wine, it’s important to note the complexity of the flavors and aromas, to see if you like them. Additionally, it’s important to look at the structure of the wine. The balance of a wine is just as, if not more important than its flavors. The more you taste, the better you will get. Wine appreciation is a rewarding hobby, and is a pleasure to pursue.

Tasting Essentials

Although many of our daily perceptions are unconscious, making a concerted effort to pay attention to several things makes the wine tasting process more educational and rewarding. Understanding a few tasting essentials will help you describe what you are sensing. While tasting you are going to use your major senses; sight, smell, taste, touch. These will help you in describing wine.

Wine Etiquette

Proper wine etiquette allows you to focus on enjoying wine in any situation. When visiting wineries, ordering wine at restaurants, or serving wine at a dinner party, there are certain protocols that one must follow. This will allow you to taste wine without thinking about factors that have nothing to do with the wine itself.

> Related Articles

• *“Wine and Health”:/learn/wine-and-health
• Wine Chemistry
• Wine Production
• History of Wine
• Wine Tasting Faux Pas*