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How to Properly Taste Wine?

Discover the different stages of wine tasting and learn a useful vocabulary for a successful tasting thanks to Vinatis!

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A corkscrew in a cork in a bottle of wine with a glass of red wine next to it

CONDITIONS FOR A SMOOTH WINE TASTING

Tasting wine is a sensory experience that allows us to appreciate all its aromas and requires a certain amount of technique and practice. Thanks to our sight, smell and taste, we are able to identify its colour, nose and palate. A few sips are all it takes to recognise its flavours, its origin and even its vintage. To discover a wine, you need to use each of your senses to the full, so don't miss any of the tasting stages to discover the secrets of the wines on offer, and get ready!

Sit in a well-lit area

Odourless and at a reasonable temperature.

Choose tulip-shaped glasses

The classic glass shape, they have the characteristic of offering the wine a good contact surface with the air which will develop the aromas and trap them thanks to its smaller opening.

Fill your glass to its widest point

In order to promote maximum contact with the air.

Always hold your glass by the stem

So that your hand does not heat up the contents.

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A glass of red wine being poured

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Glasses of white wine at varying levels of fullness and levelness
A glass of red wine being held and tilted on its side

THE VISUAL STAGE: THE APPEARANCE

Sight is the first of our senses to be used when tasting a wine. Visual analysis allows us to appreciate the colour of the wine, its general appearance and to identify some qualities or defects of the wine, its type, its age or its state of conservation. Start by examining the wine's brightness and clarity by placing it in front of a light source to assess its colour and intensity. This information is a clue to the grape variety and age of the wine. The colour varies according to the type of wine (red, white, rosé), the grape varieties used and the age of the bottle. It should be noted that the colour evolves with time, a young wine, purplish red, will evolve towards orange-red, while white wines will take on golden hues with age. Finally, turn your glass slightly while tilting it to observe the richness of the wine: if "tears" appear on the side, it is the sign of a full and structured wine. They are mainly due to the sweetness of the wine and its alcohol content. The longer the tears, the higher the alcohol content of the wine.

The colour of red wines

  • Bright red with a hint of purple: this is a young wine.
  • Cherry red: the wine is still evolving, it has not yet reached maturity but can be consumed.
  • Red with orange hues: the wine is ready to drink; if it is a wine for ageing, it is starting to develop.
  • Garnet to tawny: time to drink!

The colour of white wines

  • Pale yellow, almost transparent: the wine is very young.
  • Yellow with greenish hues: the wine has not yet evolved.
  • Straw yellow: this is a wine of good maturity.
  • Golden copper yellow: if it is a dry wine, it is well developed. If it is a sweet wine, it is mature.
  • Yellow-brown: it is an oxidised wine.

The colour of rosé wines

  • Pale pink, almost colourless: this is a wine obtained by pressing.
  • Salmon pink: the wine is fruity, young, it can be drunk.
  • Pink-orange: this is an ageing wine.

New wines

A glass of red wine being held up to a nose to be sniffed

THE OLFACTORY STAGE: THE NOSE

This stage is carried out in two steps and consists of defining the main aromas of the wine and calling on our olfactory memory. First of all, put your nose as close as possible to the wine without shaking the glass, let your imagination run wild and try to make associations. If you can already identify certain aromas, the wine will be said to be open or, if not, closed. Do not necessarily try to identify specific aromas immediately, but rather a trend. Is the aroma fruity, woody, floral, spicy, animal, vegetal, etc.? This is the first nose that allows you to appreciate the lighter aromas of the wine and reveals the primary, secondary and tertiary aromas. Then shake your glass in a circular motion to open up the wine to more specific aromas: cherry, pineapple, rose, acacia, caramel, almond, etc. and to determine a dominant olfactory sensation: this is the second nose. A wine can reveal hundreds of different aromatic notes. It's up to you to discover the smell of banana, smoke, spices, and many others.

THE MAIN AROMAS

  • Floral: acacia, hawthorn, carnation, honeysuckle, hyacinth, jasmine, iris, orange blossom, rose, lilac, broom, lime, dried flowers, heather.
  • Fruity:

Red fruit: blackcurrant, strawberry, raspberry, blackberry

Seed fruits: apple, pear,

Stone fruits: peach, apricot, quince

Exotic fruits: lemon, pineapple, litchi, mango

Dried fruits: hazelnut, almond, walnut, prune, sultana, fig

  • Vegetal: thyme, laurel, garrigue, pepper, blackcurrant bud, cut hay, grass, fern, boxwood, tea, ivy, but also anise, mint, fennel, truffle, mushroom, undergrowth
  • Mineral: flint, chalk, iodine, flint, oil, naphtha
  • Spicy: pepper, cinnamon, clove, nutmeg, vanilla, cinnamon, pepper, liquorice, zan, tar
  • Fermentary: yeast, breadcrumbs, brioche, biscuits, pastries
  • Dairy: milk, fresh butter, yoghurt.
  • Amylic: banana, English candy, nail polish.
  • Confectionery: praline, honey, marzipan, cake.
  • Woody and balsamic: oak, new wood, pine, cedar, vanilla, smoked wood, eucalyptus, burnt wood.
  • Animal: meat juices: leather, fur, game, venison
  • Empyreumatic: cocoa, toast, gingerbread, coffee, tobacco, caramel
  • Chemical: varnish, solvent
A colourful wheel of all the aromas that were just listed
Wine aroma wheel
A glass of red wine being tilted with someone's left hand while their right hand is writing in a notebook. There is also red wine in a decanter

THE TASTING STAGE: THE PALATE

Whereas the olfactory assessment is quite personal because it draws on your own prior experience, the gustatory assessment is much less personal. The search for taste is an important part of the tasting process and calls on your sensory memory. The harmony of a wine and its quality lies mainly in the balance of its flavours and aromas. Some flavours that are too pronounced neutralise others. More precisely, this harmony is essentially found in the balance between sweet, sour and bitter tastes. Through the palate, we can analyse the quality of the tannins, the degree of alcohol, the body and the length of the mouth.


Tasting a wine is a three-step process:


The attack: this is the first impression that the wine gives in the mouth and provides information on its structure. Take a small sip of wine in your mouth and move it around to impregnate your taste buds. Hold it in your mouth while inhaling small quantities of air. You need to distinguish between a short or lingering attack.


The mid-palate: the sensations develop in the mouth for a few seconds and allow you to analyse the tannins, the astringency (harsh, rough sensation) and the balance of the wine. Move the wine around in your mouth and swallow slowly. Your tongue has over 8,000 tastebuds for different flavours, sweet, salty, acidity and bitterness, so it is important to move the wine around in your mouth to determine the degree of flavour harmony. It should be noted that, according to scientific consensus, there is no such thing as mouth mapping (sweet on the front, bitter on the back, salty, acidic and unami on the sides). In reality, all the taste buds react to all tastes. Some areas are just more sensitive than others to certain flavours, depending on the cellular composition of the taste buds involved. The retro-nasal channels allow you to characterise the bouquet of the wine.


The Finish: once the wine is swallowed (or spit out), the aromas linger in the mouth. The length in the mouth, called caudalie, is counted in seconds. Estimate the time during which the aromas remain in the mouth, knowing that the good average is 10 to 12 seconds.

A glass of red wine next to a pile of books, the top one is open

WINE TASTING LEXICON

Ample

Related to the texture (not to the taste), this term evokes the sensation of a wine that is coated on the palate and whose aromatic range in retro-olfaction fully occupies the mouth.

Appearance

It refers to the clarity and colour of the wine. The eye is the first sense to be awakened in a tasting.

Astringent

A wine with a somewhat harsh, rough character on the palate. Astringency often appears in young red wines rich in tannins.

Attack

First impressions after the wine is put in the mouth.

Balance

A good balance is the harmony between acidity, sweetness, tannins and alcohol. An important aspect to look for during a tasting.

Bouquet

Fragrant characteristics perceived by the nose when the wine has aged in bottle and has begun to exhibit secondary or tertiary notes.

Caudalie

Unit of measurement of the duration of persistence of aromas in the mouth after tasting (1 caudalie = 1 second).

Dry

A wine that produces the sensation of a lack of moisture in the mouth. This effect is the result of a wine where all or most of the sugars have been converted to alcohol during fermentation.

Finish

The impression that is felt in the mouth once the wine has been swallowed. The finish can be short or lingering.

Fresh

Said of a wine that is slightly acidic, but not excessively so, that gives a sensation of freshness.

Fruity

Said of a wine, generally young, whose aromatic palette is dominated by fresh fruit aromas.

Nose

A term used to describe all the smells perceived when breathing in the wine. The "first nose" refers to the first scents smelled, before the wine is stirred.

Palate

Term designating all the characteristics of the wine perceived in the mouth.

Retro-olfaction

Refers to the perception of aromatic characteristics in the mouth. A term, therefore, which is similar to the sensations of the nose and mouth, and often evoked during the finish.

Round

A wine whose suppleness and mellowness give an impression of roundness. Term to describe the tannins present in a wine, but without aggressiveness, roughness or harshness. Make the mouth expand and welcome rather than contract as with an acidic wine.

Supple

A positive term for a wine with pleasant and harmonious levels of acidity and tannins.

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