A delicious beverage, wine has the gift of making everyone agree. Whether on its own, with friends or family, tasting it is always a much-appreciated experience. However, to fully appreciate the subtleties of this liquid, it must be tasted properly. How to proceed? Find out more about the various stages in a successful tasting.
Wine observation
The first step in tasting a wine is to admire it. The purpose of this visual examination is to assess the wine’s color. This gives you an idea of the grape variety, the vineyard region and the climate in which it has evolved. You can evaluate a number of important features:
- color: this varies according to the type of wine, the grape varieties used and the age of the bottle. If you opt for white wine, be aware that it can be lemon, golden, amber or brown in color. On the other hand, rosé can have a purplish-pink or orange tone;
- fat: raise your glass by the stem, tilt it and turn it slightly to move the wine. If the latter wine clings to the glass, then your beverage is fatty and rich in alcohol. Otherwise, it is more acidic;
- Clarity: provides information on the degree of filtration in the wine. It can be opaque, cloudy, transparent, clear, crystalline, hazy, milky or opalescent.
Olfactory analysis of wine
Once you’ve observed the wine, you can turn the glass towards your nose. Olfactory examination allows us to detect the different aromas in the wine. It takes place in two stages.
The first nose
The first nose consists of smelling the wine without moving the glass. This stage gives little information about the beverage. Nonetheless, it allows us to perceive volatile aromas and recognize wine flaws.
The second nose
The second nose consists of aerating the wine before smelling it. This aeration opens up the wine. As a result, aromas are much more perceptible. Generally speaking, there are three families of aromas: primary aromas, obtained from the grape variety and the vineyard’s floral environment; secondary aromas, resulting from the wine-making process; and tertiary aromas, obtained from the aging of the wine.
Would you like to learn more about these aromas while enjoying a fine wine? So book your wine tasting session here. This experience is accessible to everyone.
Taste test
The final step in wine tasting is the gustatory examination. The latter can be the most decisive factor in analyzing the beverage. Each zone of the language can provide different, precise information about the wine. In fact, bitterness, acidity and sweetness are not perceived in the same places in the mouth. While sweetness is felt on the tip, saltiness and acidity are perceived on the lateral sides and bitterness is felt on the back of the tongue.
To examine the wine properly, we recommend using the retro-olfaction technique. This practice consists of drawing air through the nose while drinking the wine and keeping it in the mouth. It reveals even more of the aromas. Once the wine is in your mouth, swirl it to get a better feel for its different flavors. After that, you need to pay attention to three different phases, namely the attack, the mid-palate and the finish.
The attack is the wine’s first impression. It allows you to assess its power and form an initial opinion of its balance. The mid-palate is where all the flavors develop. You can observe either the acidity of white wine or the tannins of red wine.
As for the final phase of the tasting, it consists of assessing how long the wine lingers in the mouth after spitting it out or swallowing it. As a general rule, a quality wine is recognized by its ability to develop, both on the palate and once swallowed. A wine’s length in the mouth is measured in caudalie (one second). According to the professionals, a good wine generally lasts ten caudalies (seconds) on the palate. In other words, you feel the aromas in your mouth for ten seconds after swallowing or spitting out the liquid. For prestige wines, this can be up to 20 caudalies.