How to Taste Wine- In 5 Steps

Wine tasting should be an experience.

It is more than just gulping down the glass and instead it focuses on highlighting key features of the wine in terms of its appearance, aromas and taste. Tasting wine properly will help you learn about your own palate and you will start to understand the features of different wines that you particularly enjoy. Wine tasting doesn’t have to be complicated and with a few little tricks, you will be wowing yourself with how much more you can get from every glass of wine.

There are five main steps to tasting wine: Look at the glass, swirl the wine to release the aromas and then smell, taste and finally think about the wine. Simply: look, swirl, smell, taste, think. The headings below will help you discover what you should be thinking about in each of these steps.

Simply: look, swirl, smell, taste, think.

Look:

This is the simplest step. Pour the wine into a transparent, colourless wine glass and take a look at the intensity and then colour of the wine. The colour should indicate more than whether it’s red, white or rosé, which you are likely to know already! White wines can range from lemon in colour with green highlights to gold or even brown, red wines can go from purple to garnet. There are a surprisingly large number of rosé wine colours and the descriptors often relate to a type of fruit or food. A typical Provence style rosé could be described as salmon or grapefruit, whereas a white Zinfandel might be approaching a cherry or raspberry hue.

The colour of the wine should never be used to solely judge the glass however; it may give an indication of the style or its age. Typically, whites that are lemon in colour and reds that have purple notes indicate that the wine is fresh and young whereas notes of gold, brown or garnet may suggest the wine has aged or been exposed to some oxygen. This is because as wines age the colour molecules come together and polymerise gradually changing the colour.

The intensity of the colour can also be noted. The wines may be pale with a watery edge or deep and almost opaque. It is quite easy to judge the intensity of the wine. For a white or rosé wine tilt the glass to a 45-degree angle and look at the edge of the glass. A watery edge will indicate a pale wine whereas if the colour reaches all the way to the edge the wine can be considered deep in colour. A typical descriptor could be pale lemon or deep gold but there are many options in between. For red wines the intensity is very dependent on the amount of liquid and the type of glass. However, the principle is if you can look through the glass and see your thumb or writing on a page then it is pale. If you can’t see anything through it then it’s considered deep. To truly understand this, take a Burgundian Pinot Noir and an Australian Shiraz, the Pinot Noir should be pale and easily seen through and the Shiraz will be almost opaque.

Swirl

People are often terrified of this step but swirling wine is much more simple than it sounds. To start keep the glass on the table and hold the stem, move in a circular motion with the aim of aerating the wine to release the aromas. If you feel more confident then you can move the glass off the table but be careful to keep the wine inside the glass and not all over the floor! Always hold the glass by the stem to prevent warming the bowl

Smell

Stick your nose inside the glass and give it a big, deep sniff. The aromas will greatly vary depending on the style of wine. It is best to break down the aromas into generic categories first starting with primary fruit or floral flavours such as citrus, berries or tropical fruits. Once you have decided the general category you can select more specific fruit or floral aromas such as lemon, apple, strawberry, blackberry, cherry or plum.

Next, think about any aromas that have been created during the winemaking process. The most common and easy winemaking aroma to detect is oak. Look for notes of vanilla, cedar and toast as give away indications that the wine has had some contact with oak barrels, staves or chips.

Aim to select five key aromas but the more specific aromas you can detect the better your tasting note will be. 

‘Concentrate on one feature at a time’

Taste

Finally, it’s time to taste the wine. Take a sip and try to breathe in some oxygen to aerate the wine whilst it is in your mouth.

It is up to you whether you are swallowing or spitting the wine but if you are tasting multiple examples the latter may be preferable. It can be extremely difficult to taste all aspects of the wine at one time so concentrate on one feature at a time.

To start - assess the flavours. These will most commonly be the same as the aromas you smelt but you may notice some extra flavours in the glass.

Next, move onto the acidity. Move the liquid around your mouth and then spit, then try to measure the amount of salvia that your mouth produces, the more salvia created the higher the wines’ acidity. High acid wine examples include Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir.

Next, move onto the body. This relates to the texture and thickness of the liquid. Imagine you are drinking a glass of milk; a full-bodied wine would have a similar feel whereas a light-bodied wine would be more similar to water. 

The vast majority of still wines are dry but wines can range from bone dry to lusciously sweet. The exact sweetness level can be very difficult to detect and often ripe fruit flavours can confuse you and make the wine seem sweeter than it is. However, you can break it down into dry, medium or sweet to help you assess the overall wine.

Tannins are a feature of red wine only. They give the wine astringency and also feature in tea. To detect the level of tannins in red wine see how dry your mouth feels, the drier the higher the level of tannin. You can also describe the feel of the tannins, common descriptors are chalky, soft or velvety. The riper the grape tannins were at picking the softer and more velvety they will feel.

Finally, swallow the wine and count how long the flavours remain in your mouth. A short finish would last less than a couple of seconds but wines with a long lingering finish can remain for minutes. The longer the finish the more complex the wine is considered to be.

Think

This is actually one of the most important parts of tasting wine and depending on your priorities you can judge it by your own thoughts and feelings or objectively.

There are many methods that can be used but ‘BLIC’ is a great acronym which is very popular. It allows you to assess the balance, length, intensity and complexity of the wine and make fair unbiased judgements.

Other features to think about is the typicity of the wine, can you tell the grape variety or region where it is from?

Finally, and most importantly do you enjoy drinking the wine? Everyone has a different palate and not every wine will suit your own needs. The best wine tasters will be able to objectively taste and comment on every wine style however, that doesn’t mean they will then choose to drink the wines afterwards.

If you find a wine style, grape or features in a glass that you enjoy then you can continue to explore and build on your portfolio with other similar options.