Wine Tasting Tips

The professional wine taster has a fairly rigid protocol when tasting wine. There are three major steps in the process, the Three S's: See, Sniff and Sip.

See
It is important to observe the wine carefully in the glass. First of all, wine should be clear and bright; when you see wine that's hazy or cloudy, for example, you're seeing winemaking flaws. Always compare color and age.

White. White wines start life on the light side, with green or straw color; as white wines age, their color deepens and the hue changes from green to straw to yellow to gold to brown. If someone pours you a one-year-old white and it's already deep gold, you can predict with confidence that this wine is prematurely old -- meaning, among other things, it already smells oxidized (like a half-eaten apple left out on the counter overnight) or may soon smell oxidized.

Red. Red wine starts life dark, and usually purple. Their color changes from purple to garnet to red-brick to brown. Unlike white wine, reds tend to get lighter as they age. Once again, a young Beaujolais that's looking brown undoubtedly has problems.

Sniff
It is not an affectation to swirl wine in a wineglass; doing so drives oxygen into the wine, releases the aromas, and facilitates the all-important process of sniffing the wine. Many wine-tasters say that they learn more from smelling a wine than from tasting it. Here are some things for your sniffing checklist:

Does the wine smell healthy? (It shouldn't smell moldy, vinegary or oxidized.)
Does the wine exhibit varietal character? Wine tasters always note if, say, a Cabernet smells like a Cabernet. It doesn't have to, but varietal character is a starting point for analysis.
Does the wine seem to be in youth, middle age, or old age? (If you're familiar with the classic aging cycle of the wine you're smelling, you'll be able to make this judgment.)
Does anything disagreeable stick out? (You might feel there is too much alcohol or oak, perhaps.)
Is the aroma pleasing?

The last question, of course, is the ultimate one. The nose is a more sensitive instrument than the mouth and can pick up subtle stimuli from a wine. Don't be afraid to swirl, sniff, swirl, sniff, again and again, until you feel you've understood exactly what's rising from the glass. Once I taste, my olfactory apparatus is not as keen as it was before I tasted. So I might sniff for five minutes before any wine reaches my lips.

Sip
Of course, there is a great deal of information--acid, sweetness, alcohol, tannin--that the palate can best discern. After observing and sniffing, you then use your palate to decide if the wine contains those elements in a pleasing proportion (or is, as wine tasters say, "well balanced"). You make judgments as to its position in life (gushy fruit and lots of tannin indicate youth; weak fruit may indicate the wine is starting to decline). Then, of course, there's pleasure: Do you like the taste? Do you like the texture? Only the palate can register texture, from thin, to rich, to unctuous, to buttery, to velvety, to coarse -- anything goes. Let your imagination be your guide.

Sipping Tip
A great wine-taster's trick for getting the most out of a mouthful is not recommended for polite dinner parties but helps you taste any wine. After you've sipped, hold the wine in your mouth, make an "O" with your lips, and inhale some air over the wine. A kind of gurgle will ensue, but I guarantee this method will make you more sensitive to everything in the wine.