Taking your first sip of wine is its own experience and comes with several ground rules for the serious wine taster. Here are a few tips from www.winespectator.com and some local wine connoisseurs that detail just how in depth you can be when on a wine tasting adventure.
Preparing for the tasting session
Marian Gray, manager of the Flavor Fruit Farms tasting room in Cement City, said it is best avoid very sweet or spicy foods at least an hour before tasting.
“You should also taste in order of increasing sweetness to preserve your tastebuds,” she said.
Temperature: Cold temperatures enhance the perception of bitterness, while warm ones increase the impact of sweetness and alcohol.
Doing the deed
Only fill your glass 1/3 full and always hold it by the stem. The heat of your fingertips on the bowl of the glass changes the wine’s temperature.
The swirl: the easiest way to swirl is to rest the base of the glass on a table, hold the stem between thumb and forefinger, and gently rotate the wrist. Right-handers will find a counter-clockwise motion easiest, left-handers the reverse.
The first sip: Depending on mouth size, 1/3 to 1/2 an ounce is considered the right amount to really taste the wine without gulping it down.
Make sure to relish the taste and roll the wine around your mouth for 15 to 20 seconds, allowing each section of taste buds to enjoy. A professional wine taster will be sure to do this without appearing as if he is washing his mouth with Listerine.
For the really intense wine tasters, you can even try a chewing motion while holding the wine in your mouth to pull out all of the taste.
After you swallow, exhale gently and slowly through both your nose and mouth. This allows both the aroma and the taste to linger for just a bit longer, an important aspect when determining the quality of wine.
Holly Balansag, wine maker at Sandhill Crane Vineyards in Jackson, reminds the new wine taster to drink what you like and not be intimidated into thinking you should like certain types of wine.
“You should really try your wine with food as well,” she said. “It gives it a whole other feeling.”
How to distinguish good from bad
Alcohol percentages range from 7 to 14 percent in most table wines, and the more concentrated a wine is the more textured and rich it will taste. Alcohol also provides the sweetness necessary in wine to balance the acidic or bitter taste.
If after you swallow the wine, you feel a warm sensation in the back of your throat, it can be an indication of ripe grapes. If the wine is too alcoholic, the grapes were probably too ripe when picked. But if the wine tastes a bit too bitter, the winemaker may have left the juice on the grape skins too long.
The bottom line
As Anne Leisinger, owner of Sandhill Crane Vineyards, said, “If you like it, it’s good.”
Even after tasting all the wine in the world, you may still go back to Wal-Mart’s White Zinfandel special, and that certainly keeps you in the wine snob category.