How to Taste Wine
To drink a wine is not only one business of experts.
These some councils will allow you to benefit fully from your bottles.
Let the wine breathe
The wine must breathe for exhalter its flavours, it is thus imperative sufficiently to emerge it advances some to let it breathe and develop its bouquet. The younger the wine is, the more the time of ventilation necessary will be long before serving it. Between 2 to 3 a.m., for a young wine, whereas 1/2 hour is sufficient for the bottles in full maturity.
To decante the wine
One will transvase the wine very slowly, preferably via a "horn to decanted", in a wine decanter in order to eliminate the deposits and to support a good oxigenation.
But one should not misuse the cérémonials which are not always justified. A great majority of the consumed wine will be directly versed bottle with glass and will not require this type of operation.
To serve the wine
It is recommended to use different glasses according to the wine:
- Glass in the shape of tulip for the young and fruity wines.
- A balloon glass widened to serve the ripe wines, rich in tannins.
Do not forget that glass fills to the maximum to the 2/3.
The Dress: to look at the wine
Before feeling the wine or putting it in mouth, look at its color, it is the dress. You place in front of a white zone by inclining your transparent glass slightly to appreciate its color and its density.
Limpidity
Whatever its color, a wine must be limpid. A turbid wine can indicate a degradation or a poor breeding, it is not necessarily bad.
Brightness of the wine
Very required on the white wines for example, it is an invaluable index as for their good acidity.
The color and its colours
They inform mainly about the evolution of the wine. The result of the observations is always to consider compared to the type of wines. Thus, in white for example, a dryness and marrowy will never have the same color. It is the same in red with a Beaujolais wine or a wine of Languedoc.
Nose: to breathe the flavours
Feel first once the wine, by leaving motionless glass, just after having served it. This 1st "nose" will reveal the most volatile flavours then.Feel to it second once after having made turn the wine in glass. This movement increases the oxygenation of the wine and releases from new flavours.
Repeat this operation several times of sharp in order to discovering the bouquet of a wine. Not to saturate your sense of smell, it is preferable to proceed by short inspirations.
One will distinguish 3 types of flavours:
- Primary education, specific to each type of vine and more or less marked flavours.
- Secondary flavours caused by alcoholic fermentation.
- Tertiary flavours, resulting from the transformation of the primary education, secondary flavours and of tannins during ageing.
The Mouth: to enjoy the wine
A wine is tasted by small mouthfuls. Preserve to it a few seconds in mouth and make circulate it on all the parts of your language (sweetened is perceived by the point and acidity by the side edges).
Then swallow it slowly to appreciate the "palais", savours of the wine.
- the attack: it is the 1st impression. It specifies the consistency or hardness.
- astringency: it definite the presence of tannins (polyphenols).
- balance: felt acidity. It can be soft, frank or sharp.
- the final: the end of mouth is pleasant, long.
To describe a wine
- consistency: framed, fatty, round, full, full, emaciated
- tannins: flexible, wooded, hard, bitter, astringent
- vinosity: heat, powerful, vinous, light
- marrowy: velvety, molten, hard, desiccated
French version