Everyone knows that wine is complex and highly variable, what may be a fantastic wine one day can be practically undrinkable the next and one of the best ways to become a more discerning connoisseur is to learn how to taste wine like a pro- in this article, we’ll give you some quick tips for tasting wine like a pro.
Drink wine at room temperature
Wine should ideally be consumed at room temperature, this will allow you to get the most out of it by allowing the flavors to open up; keep the bottle in a cupboard or fridge, where it is likely to be too cold to taste anything, you may be curious as to why your wine would be too cold, a common misconception is that storing Bästavinet (Best wine) in the fridge will keep it cool. It will only keep it cold and you’ll have to take it out and let it warm up again if you want to drink it.
Instead, storing wine in the fridge is only meant to keep it fresh, when it’s in a fridge, the wine’s flavors undergo a different set of chemical processes than when it’s at room temperature, it will be at an entirely different point in its lifespan, so when you take it out and drink it, it will be different from what it would have been if it was kept at room temperature.
Know the basics of your grape
The grape is the basic unit of wine-making, you’ll find the grape variety and the region in which the wine was produced on the label of the bottle, and knowing the basics of your grape will give you a better idea of how your wine tastes, here are a few key things to look out for.
- Vineyards: A good indicator of how a wine tastes is whether or not the grapes were grown in the same region as the wine, the flavor of mist-laden vines is noticeably different from sun-drenched vines.
- Reaching maturity: Grapes don’t just get picked and then magically turn into wine, they need to be harvested and then processed into wine.
- Balance: This is the sum effect of all of the factors mentioned above and is what determines the signature flavor of a wine.
Always smell, never sip
If you smell like you’re about to take a sip, you’re tasting, not smelling; keep your nose in the glass, not your lips- the smell of wine is the main way you’ll be able to determine if it’s nice or not, and if you’re not sure, smell it again- once you’ve identified the smell, that’s the best way you can identify if you’re tasting the wine or not.
Taste with your palate and not just your tongue
It may seem obvious to some, but most people have been taught to focus solely on the tongue, while the tongue is an important part of wine tasting, it isn’t the only one; the delicate areas at the roof and base of the mouth are much more sensitive, detecting sensations at the level of thousands of vibrations per second.
If you want to taste wine like an expert, focus on the roof and base of your tongue, you can acquire a better understanding of what’s going on in these areas by closing your mouth and imagining tasting something and you can also try this interesting trick of closing one eye and visualizing tasting with the other.
