Tasting a wine and describing it is not an easy task! It is above all the art of conveying your feelings and the sensations brought by the aromas and textures. Tasting is therefore quite subjective and personal, as it relies on our own experience. Indeed, just because your friend thinks the wine tastes like fig doesn’t mean you will necessarily agree. The key is to be able to express why you like a wine or not. With regular tasting practice, you will refine your palate, your senses, and your vocabulary to become a true tasting expert!
Set yourself up in the right conditions
Tasting engages our senses. Indeed, to taste a wine we need our eyes, nose, and mouth. If your nose is blocked due to a cold, for example, we don’t recommend organizing a tasting evening. Likewise, it is known that certain foods can alter perceived taste, especially those with very strong flavors. So, it’s not advisable to drink coffee before a tasting. The best time to taste a wine is before lunch or dinner. This is when the senses are particularly alert.
To optimize this moment, settle in a well-lit, temperate place, preferably one without odors. For glass shape, we recommend choosing tulip-shaped glasses. This shape allows the wine’s aromas to develop easily thanks to its opening, which provides good contact with the air. The narrower top traps these aromas so you can fully enjoy them. To maximize aromas, we suggest filling the glass up to the widest part to allow air contact. Always hold your glass by the stem. Otherwise, your hand might warm the wine inside.
Should you decant a wine?
Generally, it’s advised to decant young wines to aerate them and enhance their aromas. The ideal time is to decant an hour before serving; that’s when the wine will be at its best. However, avoid decanting very old vintages, as oxygen exposure can destroy their aromas.
Taste at the right temperature
The ideal serving temperature for a wine is between 7 and 12 degrees Celsius for white wine, and between 14 and 19 degrees Celsius for red wine. Overall, it’s better to serve wine slightly cooler rather than warmer because wine warms up quickly in the glass.
The tasting order
It’s often said that young wines should be served before old wines, or white wines before red wines. These guidelines work but don’t have to be followed strictly. For example, you can perfectly serve a white wine at the end of a meal with cheese after having red wine with meat.
The best approach is to set the tasting order based on the body and strength of the wines. Start with lively, fresh wines at the beginning of a meal, then gradually move to more powerful wines, finishing with sweet wines.
The steps of tasting
To learn how to taste wine, you need to go through three key steps involving our senses: sight, smell, and taste. By the way, isn’t that the Domaine du Goût logo?
Sight
Our sight allows us to analyze the wine’s color, known as its “robe.” The robe can give clues about the wine’s age or body. It can be pale, medium, or intense. Know that the robe changes over time.
For red wines, a purple hue indicates a young wine. An older wine will have brown tones. Red wine colors can range from purple to ruby, or garnet to brown.
For white wines, a young wine will show greenish reflections and be very pale. An older white wine becomes more amber and darker. White wine colors include lemon, gold, amber, or brown.
Finally, for rosé wines, a purplish color means it’s young, while an orange hue indicates it’s aged.
To properly analyze a wine’s color, tilt it against a white surface and observe the reflections.
Smell
Smelling the wine is done in two stages. The first nose is when you smell the wine without aerating it first (in other words, without swirling the glass). This subtle nose helps detect wine faults, like cork taint.
Next comes the second nose. You aerate the wine by gently swirling it in the glass to open it up. The aromas are then enhanced by the aeration.
There are three aroma families in wine:
- Primary: from the grape variety the wine comes from.
- Secondary: from fermentation.
- Tertiary: from aging, for example in barrels. This aging gives toasted or spicy aromas.
Don’t hesitate to smell your wine several times to perceive all the aromas and new ones that may appear over time and with air contact. If you can identify several aromas, your wine is “open.” Otherwise, it’s “closed.”
At first, don’t rush to find precise aromas but rather aroma families. Is your wine floral? Fruity (red fruits, green fruits, citrus)? Spicy (vanilla, cinnamon)? Mineral?
Then form your own opinion based on your impressions!
Taste
This is undoubtedly the most important step in wine tasting.
For this step, it’s important to swirl the wine well in your mouth to decode all its flavors. Our tongue is structured so that receptors for bitterness, acidity, and sweetness are located in different areas! To taste the wine even better, it’s recommended to draw in a little air along with your sip to aerate it and enhance its aromas. The wine’s taste analysis is done in 3 stages:
- The attack: the first sensation in the mouth, which helps judge the wine’s strength. Is it smooth? Direct?
- The mid-palate: the moment when the wine’s flavors unfold, tannins for reds, acidity for whites.
- The finish: the final note left by the wine, how long it lingers in the mouth, and which flavors it tends to evolve towards.
For example, a great wine can be recognized by its ability to linger long in the mouth and evolve in flavors even after swallowing.
Try it yourself!
If you enjoyed these tasting tips, don’t hesitate to order our wine box. You will taste three different wines carefully selected by our sommelier Thierry Dorge. The bonus of this tasting? Receive three bottles of your favorite wine!
