Tasting wine is a somewhat magical art that goes beyond just drinking -- it is about seeing, smelling and then, finally, tasting.

The tasting experience begins with a bottle of wine and a glass. Professional wine tasters recommend holding the glass by the base or the stem to keep wine unaffected by body heat. The glass should be clear, allowing visual appreciation of the wine’s appearance.

The first step is to look at the wine by tilting the glass against a white napkin or tablecloth to best see the true color. Different shades can reveal the age of a particular wine. Reds tend to change from vibrant shades (like deep purple) to brownish hues, losing color with age. The color must be brilliant without black or blue tinges. Rosé (blush) wines are actually red wines too. Their color can range from pale red to bright pink to very light rose. White wines can be anything from pale yellow-green to deep gold, gaining color over time.

Here are some typical colors of wine:

Red Wine
Purple: 1 year old
Ruby: 2-3 years old
Red: 4-7 years old
Dark red: 8-10 years old
Red-brown: 11-14 years old
Brown: 15-20 years and older

White Wine
Pale yellow-green: 1 year old
Straw-yellow: 2-6 years old
Yellow-gold: 7-11 years old
Gold: 12-15 years old
Yellow-brown: 16-19 years old
Brown: 20 and older

The clarity of wine is also a reference to color -– it should be bright and clean. The best wines usually have a luscious gloss to them, while commercial, heavily treated wines look dull. Deposits, accumulated on the bottom of the bottle or glass, indicate if a wine has been only lightly filtered or not filtered at all. Complete clarity would imply heavy filtration.

The second step in tasting wine is to give the glass a swirl. Wine should be smelled both before and after swirling. The swirling helps molecules escape the surface of wine, and the aroma or bouquet emerges. Also the swirl produces “legs” or “tears” that run down the inside of the glass, indicating the wine’s alcohol content. The thinner the legs are, the more alcohol it contains; bigger, slow moving legs have a higher sugar content.

Next, perhaps the most important step is smelling the wine. The more sophisticated the sense of smell, the more enhanced the sense of taste. There are only a few basic “tastes”: sour or acid, sweet, bitter and salty. The human olfactory sense can distinguish between thousands of different smells, gaining specific information stored in the brain. That is why smells can evoke certain emotions and feelings, associated with a particular memory.

Aroma is a term used to describe young wine. It is the first and second smell of the wine and it often has a fruity smell and can be identified by smelling like a singular item. Bouquet is the term for the scent of an older, more developed wine and it can be reminiscent of nuts or wood. The smell is often complex and comprised of several notes.

Professionals call both aroma and bouquet the “nose”. Good wine has a clean, attractive smell, which is powerful in a young wine, still dominated by its fruit; and in older, fully mature wine it has a softer balanced fruit aroma and complex woody, earthy bouquet. However, there is not a set time or fixed rules for regarding how much time is needed to be able to refer to the nose as the bouquet.

A very old wine is extremely susceptible to exposure to air. It should be poured and served immediately. If it has a musty “bottle-stink” smell, wait for 10-15 minutes to diminish, and then indulge, while the fragrance is ethereal.

Now it is time to taste the wine! There are about 10,000 taste buds distributed inside of the mouth and on the back of the throat. Take a sip of the wine and swirl it around in your mouth for about 10 – 30 seconds, tasting slowly and making sure that the entire palate is exposed to it.

Savor the wine, enjoying it and thinking about it and its flavors, taste and finish. Were all the components in balance with one another, or was one of them overpowering? There are many components that make up the taste and flavor of a wine, but the sum of the wine should be greater than its parts. The more body a wine has, the less watery it tastes. A tannic flavoring is astringency of youth. The intensity of berry flavors will slowly soften and an oak, cedar, or tobacco flavor will emerge with age.

A key indicator of high quality is a fine finish or pleasing, long aftertaste, lasting from 15 to 30 seconds after it has been swallowed.

Some important things to look for and think about when tasting: The alcohol should be in balance with other components; what is the level of residual sugar (how sweet is the wine)?; is the oak of the barrel (not applicable to all wines) in harmony with the wine or is it overpowering?; tannin level; acidity; carbon dioxide from fermentation; taste of grapes/grape type; are there bad flavors/smells (breakdown of sulfur, rotten grapes, corked wine, bacteria causing vinegar smell, etc.)?; power of aroma; body (weight of the wine in the mouth).

There are as many people as there are perceptions and sensations. Don’t feel intimidated by the opinion of a particular wine critic. The most important factor is what you like. So, indulge your senses, enjoy your wine and have fun!