How to: Taste Wine Like a Connoisseur

Burlington Wine and Food Festival is right around the corner, and if you're going (you should!), you'll want to know the technique behind tasting wine so you can fully enjoy and partake in the experience. Now, these of course aren't necessities when you're sipping on wine or trying a kind you've never had, but this is how learned wine tasters taste; it certainly won't hurt your experience!

Before we start, remember to enter our contest on Facebook to qualify to win tickets to the Burlington Wine and Food Fest! And stay tuned for tomorrow's post, which will feature a video with Shelburne Vineyard Founder Ken Albert and some behind-the-scenes info on what goes into a bottle of wine. Now, let's get started.

There are four stages of tasting wine; appearance, smell, taste and finish. For appearance, swirl around the glass and hold it to the light - in younger reds there will be bold purples and reds, and as they age they become more brown. Whites start as yellow, gold and sometimes green, and with age become paler and darker. Also take a look at the "legs" - the translucent oily streams that come down where your wine hit higher on the glass after swirling - these note the presence of higher alcohol content (the French call them "tears").

Next we have smell. Here again you may swirl the glass to introduce it to more air, and then let it rest or "breathe". Take a deep inhale to smell the wine, and note some subtle flavors you can sense. It's good to smell wine before you taste it, because your sense of smell and notes of pleasurable aromas will influence your taste in the next step.

On to the best part - taste. When you sip your wine, hold onto a small sip in your mouth and swirl it around. You want a harmony of acids, tannins and alcohol. In general, the higher the alcohol, the sweeter the wine. Too much acid in your wine can make it taste too tart, too many tannins can make it harsh and over-dry, and too much alcohol will taste both overly sweet and potent.

Lastly, the finish. The finish is basically your wine's aftertaste; the longer the aftertaste remains in your mouth, the longer the finish. Enjoy!



Background information via basic wine knowledge blog