Basic Knowledge of Wine - Part 2: Tasting (from Vinepair.com)

How & Why We Taste Wine?
There’s no right way or wrong way to taste wine. It’s this simple — do you like what you’re drinking or do you not like what you’re drinking?
Let’s repeat that: There’s no right way or wrong way to taste wine.
Tasting wine can be as simple as this — do you like what you’re drinking or don’t you?
That said, there’s a formal way to taste wine that reveals more about the wine in your glass, even before you start drinking. Here at VinePair, we understand that this method of tasting can be intimidating, so we’re going to break it down for you, leaving you feeling comfortable and confident if you wish to use this method.
It’s as simple as: look, swirl, smell & sip

What to See Or How to Look at Wine?
The first step in tasting a wine happens before you actually taste the wine. When the wine is first poured into your glass — before swirling it, smelling it, or sipping it — just look at it. The reason you look at the wine is to get a sense of its color, as a wine’s color can tell you a lot about the wine you’ll be drinking. When doing this, many people like to hold their glass of wine against a white background, as that helps you see the hue of the color more easily.
A wine’s color can tell you a lot about the wine you’ll be drinking.
So why do we care about color? The first thing to remember is that the color of a wine comes from contact with the grape skins after the grapes have been juiced. The longer the wine comes in contact with those skins, the more those skins will impart their color on the wine. Quick aside — if you skinned the grapes and juiced them, never letting them come in contact with their skins, the resulting wine would have no color at all! Because the grape skins have a lot of their own characteristics, just like the zest of an orange has purer orange flavor, or an apple skin contains more fiber than the meat, the longer the skin of a grape is in contact with the wine, the more of its own characteristics it imparts. On top of this, oak can also help make colors lighter or darker, so understanding color, especially for white wines, can help people who don’t like oaky white wines avoid them.

Let’s Start With White Wine:

First look at the shade of yellow. Is the yellow very light and bright, approaching clear, or is the yellow deep and full, almost approaching the color of straw? Light and bright white wines that you can see through have had minimal contact with the grape skins and are usually crisp and refreshing, like lemonade on a hot summer day. Typically, these wines have not been aged in an oak barrel.
If the wine is darker and deeper in yellow, then this is usually a good sign that the wine was aged in an oak barrel. It will have a smoother taste and will be much fuller and richer.

Now Let’s Look At Red Wine:

The same steps hold true when examining a red as with a white. Start by looking at the shade of red wine in your glass If the wine is light red, even approaching pink, it should taste light and bright. It may even be a little tart or “fresh” tasting and that is because the lighter the red of a wine, the less likely that it was ever aged in oak, and oak is what helps round and mellow a wine.
As the hue of the red wine gets darker and darker, approaching the colors of maroon and purple, the red will become much bolder and richer. These types of red wine are the ones you think of when you think red wine and steak dinner, and the darker and deeper the color, the longer they’ve spent aging in an oak barrel.
Now that you’re an expert in examining and understanding the color of the wine you’re going to drink, it’s time to swirl it around your glass.
How & Why You Swirl Wine in Your Glass 
Once you’ve looked at the wine in your glass and determined what the color means, the next step in tasting is to swirl and agitate the wine.
Everyone has their own unique technique for swirling wine, and that’s OK. Some people leave the bottom of the wine glass firmly planted on the table and just make a few circles with the base, while others like to pick the wine glass up and slightly flick their wrist, thereby making little circles in the air. Finally, others like to be extremely showy with their swirling, making grandiose motions like they’re getting ready to lasso a steer (we’d suggest avoiding this final type of swirling — it can be seen as obnoxious to your fellow drinkers).
No matter how you swirl the wine, your technique is completing an important next step in the tasting process: getting more oxygen into the wine. Oxygen is a friend and also an enemy of wine— frenemy. In the beginning, oxygen is really great for a wine because as soon as a wine encounters oxygen, it begins to break down, which most people refer to as a wine “opening up.” As the wine opens, it gives off its aromas and also softens, which is good. But if you let a wine sit in a glass exposed to oxygen for too long, say overnight, the oxygen will fully oxidize the wine, ruining it and leaving it with an unpleasant taste that can be flat and even bitter.
If you want to practice swirling, pour some water in a wine glass and try different techniques, swirling the water around for about 5 – 10 seconds. We like using water to practice because it helps avoid stains if you happen to slosh a little wine out of the glass at first. Once you get the hang of this tasting step, you’ll probably find yourself swirling all sorts of beverages out of habit!

How & Why You Smell The Wine in Your Glass
Now that you’ve looked at the wine and swirled it around in your glass, there’s only one more step before you get to drink it: smelling the wine.
When you smell a wine, you’re preparing your brain for the wine you’re about to taste.
When you smell a wine, you’re preparing your brain for the wine you’re about to taste. Our sense of smell has a profound affect on the way our brain processes flavor. If you want to better understand just how profound, hold your nose and then put a strawberry in your mouth and start to chew. Halfway through chewing, release your nose. You’ll notice right away how much more you actually taste when you have your sense of smell. This is why smell is so important when it comes to tasting a wine.

It’s Time To Learn How To Smell Wine!

When you go to smell the wine, stick your nose all the way into the glass and close your eyes — sure you might feel silly doing it, but you’re going to notice a lot more smells this way — then breathe in deep. As you smell the wine, think about what scents you’re picking up, and keep in mind that there are no wrong answers! If it’s a white wine, maybe you smell bananas, lemon rind, pineapple or even that scent that is always in the air when you go to the beach. If it’s a red wine, you may smell prunes, cherries, strawberries, peppers, plums or tobacco. In both situations, you may say you just smell grapes, and that is totally fine too. Your brain can only pick up scents that are in your memory, meaning they are scents you’ve smelled before or smell often. That’s why ten people could be sitting around a table smelling the same wine and say they smell ten different things!
Now that we’ve given our brain some material to ready our taste buds, we want to determine if we’re picking up any scents that could signal that something could be wrong with the wine, such as the wine being corked. A corked wine is not pleasant to drink, so if you smell anything that is reminiscent of wet newspaper, a moldy dank basement, old wet rags or wet dog, there’s a chance the wine is corked. If you’re not sure, feel free to ask those drinking with you if they pick up similar scents, and never be afraid to ask your server what they think, because if the bottle is corked, they should replace it. A good rule of thumb to remember here is that the only way a wine can be corked is if the wine bottle was sealed using an actual real cork. If instead the wine is closed with a screw cap or synthetic plastic cork, having a corked wine is not possible.
Now that you’ve assessed the wine for any irregularities, learned how to sniff wine, and readied your taste buds, the next step is drinking!

Sipping Wine - The End of The Basics!
Congratulations, you’ve made it to the big payoff. You’ve lookedswirled and smelled, so now it’s time to sip your wine.
Take a sip from your glass and let the wine sit in your mouth for a moment. At this stage, some people like to swish the wine around in their mouth, like they’re using mouthwash. They’re doing this so the wine touches all of their taste buds, but it’s not necessary. The main idea here is to let the wine linger in your mouth so that you take a moment to think about it. What does it taste like? Do you taste any of the smells you picked up? Is the wine drying your mouth out (if this is happening, it means that the wine is strong in tannins)? Then swallow.
If you’re tasting with others, talk about the wine. Be confident in what you think. Do you think the wine tastes and smells of strawberries? Do you think it’s sweet or dry? Everyone tastes differently and there are no right or wrong answers, so don’t be intimidated if someone picks up something that is different from you. Just sit back, relax and have another drink.
Happy Tasting.

How Does Wine Have So Many Different Flavors? 
One question we get a lot is why wines taste and smell like so many different things and not just grapes. The more you drink wine, the more you start to notice subtle flavors like vanilla, spice, tobacco, tropical fruits or even ocean air. We know a winemaker doesn’t actually add spices or seawater into a wine, so how does the wine end up inheriting these flavors?
Grapes are an incredibly impressionable and delicate fruit. Each decision the winemaker makes throughout the process, from how and where the grapes are grown, to what occurs to them after they are juiced, impact how the wine tastes and smells at the end.
We know a winemaker doesn’t actually add spices or seawater into a wine, so how does the wine end up inheriting these flavors?
There is a saying among winemakers that the best wine starts in the vineyard. Good farming equals great wine, and it is at this stage where the grapes also first come in contact with elements that can impact the wine’s ultimate characteristics. Many insects are important to the health of grapes, but probably none are more important than bees. As the grapes grow in a vineyard surrounded by plants such as wild herbs, flowers and grasses, the bees fly around the vineyard distributing pollen, and as the grapes ripen they absorb the subtle flavor characteristics from these plants.
Elements such as the air can also have an impact on the flavor of the grapes as they grow. In many regions of the world, such as Spain and Greece, much of the white wine is grown on cliffs that overlook the sea. As the waves crash into the rocks and spray salt water into the air, the saline air becomes absorbed by the grapes as they ripen, adding a delicious minerality to the grapes that can taste and smell like a fresh sea breeze.
After the grapes transition from the vineyard to the cellar, each decision the winemaker makes has an influence on the overall flavor. How the winemaker chooses to press the grapes, whether the winemaker wishes to age the fermented juice in steel or oak, and how long the winemaker lets the wine sit in these vessels all aid in imparting unique flavors and smells into a wine.
With all of these factors having an influence on the overall taste and smell of the wine, it’s no wonder that so many of us pick up different characteristics when tasting and smelling the same wine. It’s one of the things that makes drinking wine so much fun.

How To Tell If a Wine Is Corked? Corked Wine Smell Guide 
Corked wine is something we’ve all heard of, but you may not know if you’ve ever actually encountered it. We’re going to break down what it means when a wine is ‘corked’ and what you should do when you buy a corked bottle.
Let’s start with what isn’t corked wine:
  • It’s not the pieces of cork floating around your wine or a cork covered in little white crystals. These crystals, which are called tartrate, are a natural byproduct of some wines and are totally harmless.
  • You also can’t tell if a wine is corked from smelling the cork itself.
  • Another fun fact is if the bottle you opened used a screw cap or synthetic cork to form the seal, it can’t be corked.
So what is a corked wine? Or breaking it down further, what is corked wine smell & what is corked wine taste? A corked wine is one that has been contaminated with cork taint, and this contamination gives off a very distinct smell and taste. Cork taint occurs in a small percentage of all natural corks available in the world, with recent studies finding that only about 5% of wines with natural corks are actually corked.
While drinking corked wine is not harmful to your health, it does ruin the experience, and you should always return the bottle if you believe it is corked.
How does cork taint occur? Since cork is a natural substance, little microorganisms often like to eat it, either while it’s still part of the tree or after it’s been turned into a wine cork. In small instances, these airborne fungi come in contact with the cork and create a substance known as TCA, a nasty chemical compound that ruins the wine the second the wine in the bottle comes in contact with it.

Corked Wine Taste & Corked Wine Smell

So how do you know if a wine is corked? Corked wine gives off a smell that is similar to a dank moldy basement, a wet newspaper or a wet dog. When you actually sip the wine, a typical corked wine taste will be flat and dull, exhibiting no fruit characteristics. Some people also say that corked wine tastes astringent.
Sometimes Cork Taint Smells Like A Wet DogCorked wine gives off a smell that is similar to a dank moldy basement, a wet newspaper or a wet dog.

Interestingly, scientists, doing what scientists do, have actually uncovered a way to extract the TCA out of the wine, thereby removing the cork taint. This involves a process of letting the wine soak in a pitcher with a wad of plastic wrap for about 15 minutes and then pouring the wine into a new vessel, leaving the plastic wrap behind. The researchers that discovered this trick at UC Davis claim the TCA bonds to the plastic wrap and removes the cork taint from the wine, but we say why bother with this trick; life’s too short to drink bad wine and you should simply return the bottle. Any wine store that won’t accept a return on a corked bottle is a wine shop you should not patronize!

What Are Wine Legs?
We want to clear something up right now: wine legs don’t matter.
In fact, in all of our years involved in wine, we’ve never met anyone who could read them correctly. Nor could they explain why they believe they matter. But, just in case you encounter someone who wants to talk about legs, and claims to understand them, here’s a quick explanation so you’re prepared.
Wine legs, also referred to by the French as the “tears of a wine,” are the droplets or streaks of water that form on the inside of a wine glass as you move the wine around. While some people think these legs relate to the quality, sweetness or viscosity of the wine, THEY DO NOT. In fact, wine legs are just a representation of how much alcohol is in a wine. That said, we have never met anyone who could correctly “read” those legs and then tell us the level of alcohol in the wine. And why should they bother when the alcohol percentage is already printed on the wine label?
So while wine legs look beautiful in a glass as they streak down the sides, don’t worry about reading them, as they don’t matter. Just enjoy the wine and the visual!

Wine Acidity Guide: What Does Acidity in Wine Mean?
Imagine that first sip of a wine. The wine is refreshing yet slightly tart, and the word “crisp” quickly comes to mind. So what is it that you’re enjoying about this wine? Acidity. If you love this sensation, you love wines with dominant or prevalent acidity.
Acidity is a wine’s “pucker” or tartness; it’s what makes a wine refreshing and your tongue salivate and want another sip.
So what is acidity in wine? Acidity is a wine’s “pucker” or tartness; it’s what makes a wine refreshing and your tongue salivate and want another sip. The easiest way to think about acidity is to think about a glass of lemonade. That pucker you get when you drink the lemonade, combined with the refreshment the lemonade gives you, is acidity. It’s what makes that lemonade great to drink on its own and also pair well with food.
When someone says a wine is crisp, bright or fresh, what they are really saying is the wine has great acidity, just as they would say that a citrus drink tasted fresh and bright. Although these words are most commonly used to talk about white wines, red wines can be crisp, bright and fresh as well.
The common misconception is that some wines have acidity, and others don’t, but in fact, all wines have a little bit of acidity. Even in Cabernet Sauvignon, a wine that is normally thought of as deep and mellow, the acidity plays an important role; it helps blend all of the other flavors of the wine together, causing each flavor, or sensation, to be more pronounced. If a wine has no acidity at all, it tastes dull and boring, which people refer to as flat. It is that little bit of acidity that causes your taste buds to want more and recognize other flavors.
Acidity...Like a Lemon Stand!Think about a glass of lemonade. That pucker you get when you drink the lemonade, combined with the refreshment the lemonade gives you, is acidity.

For acidity to work best, even when it’s dominant, like in our white wine example, the wine has to be in balance, which is referred to as a balanced wine. This means that the acidity of the wine plays well with the wine’s other components; it doesn’t overpower the wine, causing it to be extremely tart and sour and it also doesn’t leave something to be desired, leaving the wine dull.

What Is a Tannin? A Guide to Tannins
If you drink wine, at one point or another you’ve probably heard someone refer to a wine’s tannins, but you may not know what they are or why they matter. While knowing what this term means is not a necessity for enjoying a glass of wine — really! — it can help you better understand the wine you’re drinking and even why some wines give you a headache.
You experience the effect of tannins any time you drink a wine that creates a drying sensation in your mouth.
Tannins are naturally occurring compounds that exist inside grape skins, seeds and stems. The scientific word for these compounds is polyphenols. Polyphenols release from the skins, seeds and stems when they soak in the grape juice just after the grapes have been pressed and are what give certain wines, such as Cabernet Sauvignon, their characteristic dryness or astringency. You experience the effect of tannins any time you drink a wine that creates a drying sensation in your mouth. Depending on how dry your mouth feels, you can determine whether a wine is high or low in tannins. We say a wine that is high in tannins is tannic.
If you want to try a trick that can help you recognize a tannin when you taste it, brew a cup of extra strong black tea. Tannins naturally occur in black tea and their characteristics emerge when the tea is brewed a few minutes longer than recommended. After brewing the tea, take a sip and you’ll immediately notice a slight bitterness in the middle of your tongue and a dryness in the front of your mouth — this is a tannin.
What makes a wine have strong or weak tannins depends on how long the juice sits with the grape skins, seeds and stems after the grapes have been pressed. The longer the skins, seeds and stems soak in the juice, the more tannin characteristics they will impart. This explains why red wines have stronger tannins than white wines. When producing a red wine, the winemaker wants the skins to impart more color, thereby adding more tannins to the juice. Further, by extracting the characteristics of tannins, they are able to add deeper complexity to the wine.
Winemakers also love tannins because they work as a natural antioxidant to protect the wine. This is actually a key reason why certain red wines, including Cabernet Sauvignon, can be so age-worthy. And, as we know, antioxidants aren’t just useful for helping us age wine; they also have great health benefits for humans! Now you can tell your nutritionist there’s no need to keep drinking that pomegranate juice; you’re just going to have a nice glass of red wine instead!
Black Tea Is Also High In TanninsDark chocolate and strong black tea also contain a lot of tannins.
The only downside to tannins is that they can give some people headaches. A good way to test if you’re susceptible to tannin headaches is to determine whether or not similar substances that are strong in tannins, such as dark chocolate and strong black tea, produce the same effect. Tannin headaches are rare, usually we just get a wine headache from consuming too much, but if you do realize you suffer from them, sticking to white wine, which is very low in tannins, would solve your tannin-triggered headaches!

What Is Oak? Guide to Oaked & Unoaked Wines 
Many wines can benefit from coming in contact with oak. (To learn how winemakers first realized this, read our article about the history of storing wine in oak.) Oak can enhance the color of the wine, soften and round out flavors, and impart its own unique characteristics. Almost all red wines and many white wines spend time in oak barrels before being bottled, and that’s just because winemakers have found they taste better that way.
We like to think of a winemaker using oak as a chef would use salt, you use a little or a lot to either just slightly bring out other flavors, or to have the oak’s own characteristics play a more prominent role. However, just as a chef can use too much salt in a dish, so to can a winemaker use too much oak in a wine. If all you taste is the characteristics of the oak, instead of the fruit, we say the wine is not balanced. If you drink a wine that tastes like liquid butter, that wine has way too much oak.
So how do you recognize when a wine has been oaked? When a wine sits in oak to age, the oak slowly imparts its flavors and colors into the wine. If this is a white wine, the longer the wine sits in oak, the darker a yellow it will become, almost mimicking the hue of straw. If the wine is red, color is not affected as much, but often the longer the wine sits in oak, the darker red it can become.
In terms of flavors, living inside oak is a compound known as vanillin, which as the name suggests, tastes like vanilla. When a wine sits in oak for a long time, that compound leaves the wood and transfers into the wine, which is why many white wines, especially Chardonnay, can have such prominent vanilla flavors. Other flavors that can be enhanced by oak are mocha, caramel, toffee or honey.
If you find you don’t like wines with a lot of oak, especially white wines, a general rule is that California wines, especially those that are mass-produced, tend to over-oak more than other regions of the world.
If it’s still unclear how much oak can affect a wine, here’s a great side-by-side tasting you can do. Purchase a Chardonnay that has been aged in oak and one that has been unoaked (aged in steel). Pour both wines into glasses and try one after the other. In the unoaked wine you will taste the fruit prominently and there will be more acidity present, it will taste “fresher” (sometimes winemakers will say an unoaked wine is naked). In the oaked wine the fruit will still be present, but it won’t be as bright and crisp, instead it will be in balance with other flavors, such as vanilla and spices. It will also have a fuller mouthfeel.
If you find you don’t like wines with a lot of oak, especially white wines, a general rule is that California wines, especially those that are mass-produced, tend to over-oak more than other regions of the world. Avoid those and you’ll find wines that are balanced and delicious, benefiting from oak’s influence and characteristics.

Wine Body Guide - Light, Medium & Heavy Body! 
One of the primary ways to analyze and talk about wine is by discussing a wine’s body. While as upstanding ladies and gentlemen we’d normally never talk about someone’s body, in wine talking about body is not a discussion of shapeliness, but instead an analysis of the way a wine feels inside our mouth.
 Wine Body Definition: In wine talking about body is not a discussion of shapeliness, but instead an analysis of the way a wine feels inside our mouth.
Wine body breaks down into three categories: light body, medium body and full body, and a good way to think about the difference between them is the way skim milk, whole milk and cream feel in your mouth.
While there are many factors that can contribute to a wine’s body, the main factor is alcohol. Because of this, knowing the influence alcohol has on the body of a wine is a good trick to help you quickly know what category of body the wine you are drinking will fall under.
The reason alcohol is the main contributor to a wine’s body is because alcohol is what gives a wine its viscosity and is responsible for either the heavy or light mouthfeel we experience when we sip a wine. Viscosity is that term we learned in high school science, which is used to define a liquid in terms of how easily it responds to stress (e.g., water is less viscous than honey because it has less weight and moves more easily).
Viscosity Is What We're Talking AboutAlcohol is what gives a wine its viscosity and is responsible for either the heavy or light mouthfeel we experience when we sip a wine.
As a wine contains more and more alcohol, it becomes more viscous (i.e., it becomes heavier, and thereby feels fuller in our mouths). This is why we call a heavily viscous wine full-bodied and a low viscosity wine light-bodied.
Here are the general rules:
Wines Under 12.5% alcohol (the alcohol percentage should always be written on the wine’s label) are said to light-bodied. These are generally the white wines we think of as crisp and refreshing. Good examples of these wines are Riesling, Italian Prosecco and Vinho Verde.
Wines between 12.5% and 13.5% are considered medium-bodied. Good examples of these wines are RoseFrench BurgundyPinot Grigio and Sauvignon Blanc.
Finally, any wine over 13.5% alcohol is considered full-bodied. Some wines that are normally over this alcohol level and considered full-bodied are ZinfandelSyrah/ShirazCabernetMerlot and Malbec. While the majority of wines over 13.5% alcohol are usually red, Chardonnay is a great example of a white that often can also be considered full-bodied.
From Vinepair.com 

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