How to taste wine - perfect the art

Wine tasting is like art. It requires practice. Wine tasting is subjective so it can be good or bad, depending on every person’s personal choice. Mastering the art of wine tasting requires the use of all the senses which comes with long years of practise. Here are steps to follow to taste wine:

1. Ready your setup: Different wine glasses for different types of wine. And for wine tasting a decent glass is a must. A clear glass with a thicker stem is always advised. Red wine glasses are typically taller and have a wider mouth and bowl. The shape allows the flavours and smells to come out while swirling. As for the white wine, trapping of lesser air makes the wine taste finer. Hence, white wine glasses tend to be slighter with smaller mouths.
2. Visualize the wine: With wine a lot has to do with the colour and the clarity. Hence, the importance of clear glass. To assess the appearance and colour of wine, look at it against a white surface under good, natural light.
3. Swirl the wine: Swirling the wine is one of the most important yet most often-skipped step in wine tasting. Grab the bottom of the stem and swirl it. This will help to increase the surface area of the wine and aerate it releasing its aromas. The thickness of the wine is determined by the streaks of wine that fall on the glass after the swirling.
4. Smell the wine: The sense of smell is yet another method to determine the taste of wine. The brain can distinguish about 10,000 different smells. Hence, getting the smell right can help determine the taste. To have a better clarity one can also note down the different smell before moving on to the next. The common aroma include fruity, woody, pungent, floral, spicy, nutty, and chemical.
5. Finally taste it: To taste the wine, swirl it around in the mouth until it coats almost every part the tongue. This will also warm up and aerate the wine, and help release its flavours.Profile them!The final method is profiling the different wines tasted. There are three broad categories used to describe a wine's taste: sweetness, acidity, and tannin. If the wine tastes sweet and acidy it is because of the dryness of the wine generally caused by tannins which comes from the skins, seeds and stems of the fruit.

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Having a palette of some crackers, bread or fruit ready before you move to the next bottle also helps to determine the taste better.

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