Why should you taste as many different wines as you can?
The easiest answer to this question, is to decide what wine you like. However, there is a much better answer and that is to understand why you like one wine over another. Wine is a complex beverage with several distinguishing characteristics. These characteristics include things as simple as the color of the wine – red or white. However, other characteristics are not quite so simple. It is through the tasting of different wines that we are able to detect and appreciate these characteristics. How you taste a wine is especially important. Tasting must not only be for enjoyment but must be more of a conscience use of our sight, smell and taste senses. The characteristics for which we need to be more conscientious follow:
Aromas – odors of the wine perceived by smelling: Examples are floral, fruit, spices
Flavors – a combination of the senses of taste and smell of wine in the mouth: Examples are fruit, spices, oakiness, chocolate, vanilla, butter
Body – weight of the wine in your mouth Ranging from light (like water) to full (like whole milk) Can be affected by grape variety, alcohol level, and even sweetness level Alcohol – the percentage of alcohol in the wine: Ranging from 9% to 20% Acidity – the fresh, tart or sour element of wine: Keep in mind the sensation of eating a Granny Smith apple, lemon or grapefruit Sweetness – the detection of sugar: Ranging from Sweet (noticeable and measurable sugar) to dry (completely lacking sugar) Bitterness – attribute that causes the mouth pucker: Keep in mind the sensation of eating asparagus or biting on citrus peel It is the interplay of these characteristics that makeup how we will like or dislike a particular wine. If any one of these characteristics’ over-powers the others, it is likely that we will not enjoy the wine. It is when these characteristics are in harmony with one another that we really enjoy the wine. When drinking a wine with the characteristics in harmony or “in balance”, often, we do not even realize it. We just comment that we are really enjoying this wine. By actively tasting wine and tasting many different wines, we can understand how each of these characteristics affect our enjoyment of wine. As we experience more wines, we can start to predict what combinations of these characteristics are the wines we will enjoy.
Tasting sheet
Download this tasting sheet to use or use as an example to create your own.