In last month’s column, we learned about the five S’s of wine tasting. The goal was to ensure a consistent tasting experience.
Now that you’ve mastered seeing, swirling, smelling, sipping, and savoring a glass of wine, it’s time to enhance your tasting experience by looking at what color and aromas tell us about the wine.
A wine’s color gives us clues about its age and grape variety.
White wines tend to start out pale, almost straw-like in color. As they age, they deepen, becoming more of a yellow gold.
The opposite is true for red wines. A young red wine will often appear to be a deep purple in the glass. As it ages, it shifts to more of a ruby tone.
An older red wine loses that color intensity and takes on a brick-like hue. The color of the wine in your glass gives you information about the wine’s age. A deeper color can also mean that the wine is more full-bodied.
One of my favorite parts of the tasting experience is looking at the wine’s legs or tears. When you swirl a wine in the glass, look at how it runs down the side of the glass. Thicker, slower legs or tears generally mean the wine has a higher alcohol content.
Moving on to your tasting technique, it’s time to focus on the aromas in your glass.
When you smell the wine, do you get red fruit like strawberries or cherries? Could be a Pinot Noir.
If you get bold, ripe dark fruit like blackberries and plums and it’s mixed with a hint of spice and pepper, you’ve likely got a glass of Zinfandel in front of you. The same is true for white wine.
Sauvignon Blanc often has lime, grapefruit, pear, and green apple on the nose. Depending on where the grape is grown and how the wine is made, it can also exhibit stone fruits like peaches and nectarines, as well as some minerality.
Follow your eyes and your nose and remember, practice makes perfect. You will be a more confident taster in no time. Cheers!
