Getting Through Your First Wine Tasting

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Getting Through Your First Wine Tasting
By. Helen Carter

Observe and Study The Wine
There are 2 specific ways to lift the wine glass, this is how you achieve it:

If you’re tasting a chilled wine, do not hold the bowl of the glass of wine, you must handle it by the stem.
If you are tasting a room temperature wine – handle the glass of wine by lifting it it in between your two central fingers so that the bowl sits on the palm of your hand.

The glass of wine should be comfortably in your hand, hold it at a slight angle in front of something white. Hold the glass of wine at arms length, take care to keep the wine in the glass of wine! This is never a great. Varying on your eyesight you may vary the distance your eye is from the wine.

Now you will be at the point where you can examine the clarity of the wine, this is all about studying the wine. It would be surprising for you to know that wines are available in many colours and not just the whites, rose and red that we are used to, studying the wine will reveal other colours like greens or even black. As many people are aware the colour of the wine is governed by the grape, if you are keen to astonish anyone I would not go about shouting this out as the extent of your knowledge, but if you’re in a group of wine novices you could throw it into conversation.

Clarity is an indication of age. The clearer the wine, this means it’s a younger wine, a murkier wine will normally indicate that there is a issue with the wine, if this is the case I personally would not drink it. When you are looking at the colour of the wine you will see difference between wines, but the colour and clarity has little influence on the taste, but all wine aficionados enjoy the beauty of wine.

Time to use your nose. The Bouquet.
You should still have the glass of wine held in the way we discussed earlier, first you must swirl the wine, rotate your hand slightly so that the wine swirls around the wine glass, be safe as to not to drip the wine.You should find it very simple to swirl the wine, you won’t have to be wild with the glass, slight movement will give you what you want.

In order for the glass of wine to be inhaled, the swirling of the wine brings the wine up onto the sides of the wine glass and elevates the aroma of the wine. Move the glass up to the tip of your nose, breath in and then take a lengthier savored inhale. I suggest you exhale after those 2 inhalations or you might find yourself going dizzy.

At the point your are enjoying the odour of the wine that you conversing what you can smell in the wine, try to be very truthful as people will suggest all manor of flowers and substances influencing the smell of the wine.

The Fun Part: The Tasting

This is never about chugging great big gulps and glasses of wine down like no tomorrow, you be slow to make the most the tasting of the wine, plus in any single wine evening or party you may taste over 12 different wines, so take your time.

Drink some of the wine, don’t gulp it, only put a tiny amount of wine into your mouth initially. Now close your mouth and move the wine around your mouth to release the taste, you can either swallow the wine or spit the wine out, if you swallow breath out at the same moment. Now you should be able to have the taste of the wine, again be brave and tell people what you can taste: the dryness, flavours and if you enjoyed it.

There you go, this is not going to make you an Oz Clark overnight, but it may get you through your first wine tasting experience, if this is feels like your idea of hell, let me assure you that two years ago I would have agreed, but once you try it you will never see wine in the same way.

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About The Author, Helen Carter

Helen Carter manages an online wine retailer specialising in wines for christmas and cheap champagne for her own consumption and her personal wine cellar, she writes about wine in her spare time.

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