Wine Tasting Guide

I’m always asked how you should taste the wine properly.  As far as I’m concerned you should taste the wine in the same way as you are going to drink the wine because all of the techniques that wine tasters use are going to give you a exaggerated feel of the wine rather than how you are going to drink at home.

If you want to get out the most out of a wine, aroma counts for a lot. You shouldn’t fill your glass to full - just a small amount in your glass. You can see that this wine is a beautiful green colour. This is a lovely Sauvignon which gives you a lovely green colour. So have a look at the colour, it should be clear. If there are any problems with the wine, it might be cloudy.  Swirling the wine, allows it to open up and will release the aromas. And then, you have a feel of the smell. That smells lovely. When you are smelling the wine, you are taking note that it needs to be a clean smell so you don’t want any faults in that. A musty smell often is an indication that it might be corked, slightly corked or perhaps there might be a fault with it.   So, it should be a clean smell and you are trying to pick up any associations you may have.  Don’t worry about any descriptions that the winemaker has said. They are his associations. You are thinking about associations that you have with the wine.

Once you have got the smell then you should taste. When you’re tasting, if you bring some air into the mouth as you’re tasting you’ll get much, much fuller flavours and you will really be able to detect the little complexities of the wine. It might be something you want to practise in the privacy of your own home - when you are alone. You just suck in some air, over the wine while it is in your mouth and you can smell and taste the wine at the same time. It also spreads the wine around your mouth so you’re tasting with the whole of your mouth. You should be looking at tastes at different stages so as the wine moves back and you swallow, you’re going to get different tastes. At the start, you’ll have flavours, during the middle while its in the mouth; that’s what we call mouth-feel and then the finish is how your mouth feels and what it taste like after you’ve swallowed.  And they’re the different stages. But really, what you are looking for is whether you enjoyed it or not. What flavours you particularly enjoyed and then compare that with the winemaker’s description. So you might be able to associate those later and find a wine again that you particularly like.

With the red wine, its identical but when you’re looking at the colour; a really vibrant colour is going to suggest youthfulness. As a wine becomes more russety in colour, its becoming more mature. And again, its all down to taste as to whether you prefer very, vibrant fruity, wines in which case you’re looking for bright reds, vibrant violets or whether you prefer those more mature - I call them “lazy” reds because that’s how I feel when I drink them - lazy. They are more russety. As the wine gets older, you’ll have a clearer area around the rim.

This is a young wine so it is very, very vibrantly coloured and the smell just leap out. You should aerate the wine just to emphasize the smells. Big, big raspberry flavours out of this. Big cherry aromas and a touch of liquorice. This is a Malbec so it’s going to be spicy and you can smell the spice right off. And those aromas follows right through to the flavour. At the front, picking up all of that fruit and as it is in the mouth it is spicy and I can feel the dryness on my teeth and gums. Dryness on the teeth and gums; that’s tannins. If you don’t like tannins, it doesn’t mean you’re not going to like the wine. Match it with something high in protein like cheese or red meat and that dryness will just become very silky.  Tannins are a deliberately thing. They are there to react with the food that you eat. This wine actually taste very different with food than when it is drunk on its own. And then the finish, after you’ve swallowed; with this wine its all liquorice and spice which is lovely. And, that is the time when you should contemplate the wine before drinking again.