About Wine Information Blog: Apr 13, 2007

10:10 PM

This article on About Wine may leave you speculating about #About Wine . Hope this speculation also leads to better understanding about About Wine .

A synopsis on wine.

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Another Great Article

Virginia Wine Tasting

Living the Good Life
By Jim Bogaty- Owner Veramar Vineyard

In Virginia winery tasting rooms, learn how to taste wine

A wine tasting tutorial
Do you think people who visit winery-tasting rooms know a lot about wine? Well some do, but most don't. No matter, that's not a hindrance to enjoying wine. The local wine establishments welcome you to visit their tasting rooms. Go out to the winery and meet the winemakers. DO NOT fear visiting a winery. The winery wants you to taste their wine and if they are good, they will do everything they can to make you feel comfortable in their tasting room. Hospitality is everything.

Few things are more intimidating than wine tasting. You may feel that you lack the knowledge and experience to properly taste wines. First thing that any wine taster should do is relax! This is a very personal experience. There are few absolutes in wine tasting or few "right" or "wrong" perceptions. The ultimate evaluation of any wine is Do you like it! Remember, wine is supposed to be fun.

Here's how it goes at most Virginia local winery tasting rooms: The visitor settles in. A small amount of wine is poured - usually a series of whites to start, then a series of reds. Dry wines to begin, then sweeter wines to finish. For the most part, whites are light and easier to taste. Reds tend to have more complex, heavier flavors; you don't want to overwhelm your taste buds by tasting them first. Drink some water or have a cracker after tasting a wine to cleans your palate in order to better appreciate the next wine.

How do I taste wines? Its as simple as 1-2-3.

There are three aspects to tasting any wine. 1 Color- 2 Smell - 3 Taste

First color
First step is to look at the wine in the wine glass. OBSERVE color and clarity. Wines should be clear rather than hazy. When you look at a wine it is important to take your time. Disregard everything you have seen in commercials and movies, 99.9% of that is wrong. Lighting is important, because you cannot observe the colors of a wine in a dark room. Bright sunlight is best. Set the glass on the tasting bar on a white napkin. Do not hold your glass up and look from underneath. The colors behind the glass will influence your impression of the wine's color. Look down at a slight angle into the wine glass. Note the subtle colors. Is it a ruby red? A plum red? Is it a pale straw gold color? Does it have hints of green? Taking time to really look at your wine will enhance your pleasure. Wine color is affected most by: the age of the wine, grape variety, whether or not the wine spent time in oak. White wines vary from clear to deep golden brown, and gain color as they age. Red wines range from ruby to brick. As they age, they lose color and begin to brown. Also, observe the body of the wine by the way it coats the sides of the glass. If the "legs" trickle down slowly, it has more body. If it falls down in sheets, it has less body.

Second smell
The second step is to swirl the wine in the wine glass. Swirling the wine increases the surface area exposure to the air and helps release the wine's bouquet or aroma.
What is the very first thing you think of when you smell a wine? Sniffing the wine from the glass will release smells which can be described as Fruity, Savoury, Dairy, Nutty, Spicy, Mineral, Sugary, Woody, Floral, Herbal.Younger wines have a fruity bouquet whereas older wines tend to have a savoury and spicy bouquet. While different people will smell different things in the same wine, there are characteristic smells generally found in specific varieties. Be sure to smell the wine several times. A wine with great complexity will offer different aromas each time, as well as several scents at one time. There are hundreds of smells in wine!

"Off smells" include:
Sherry - the wine has oxidized from age or improper storage.
Vinegar - the wine contains excessive acetic acid.
Cork/Mustiness - a defective or inferior cork has affected the wine.
Sulfur - the wine contains excessive sulfur dioxide.

And third the Taste
The final step in tasting is to actually take a sip of the wine and swirl it in your mouth. Different parts of the tongue register different tastes. Roll the wine across your taste buds, keeping in mind that a balance of the following characteristic is ideal:

Body - Fullness or thinness. A function of both alcohol and glycerols.

Fruitiness - Intensity is a function of the variety, growing conditions and winemaking techniques.

Sweetness is tasted at the tip of the tongue. The wine can be medium, dry or sweet. - Comes from the wine's fruit flavors as well as any fermented grape sugars left in the wine. If there is no perceived sweetness, a wine is "dry".

Acidity is tasted on the sides of the tongue. White wines have more acidity than red wines. Acidity provides tartness to the wine. Gives the wine crispness and freshness, without which the wine is flat and sour.

Tannin is tasted at the back of the tongue and tastes bitter like a strong cup of tea that makes your mouth fur up (that slight 'pucker feeling'.) - The bitterness you taste comes from grape skins and seeds. It is essential to the finish of a wine. Most obvious in reds.

Alcohol is sensed at the back of the throat and gives a warming sensation. The higher the level of sugar in the grapes before fermentation, the higher potential alcohol the wine will have.

After swallowing, notice the aftertaste. EVALUATE THE FINISH - Savoring. Concentrate on the wine's finish (the sensation and flavors left in your mouth after swallowing. Did you like it? Why or why not? What did you notice about the body? How long did the impression/flavor linger? How long does the wine stay in your mouth? Finish is a term that describes the length of time you can taste the wine once you have swallowed. A crisp, clean and lingering finish is a mark of a good wine.

So please go visit the local tasting rooms at the wineries. Here are some for wineries for you to try; Veramar Vineyard www.veramar.com, Piedmont, North Mountain or Breaux. Visit Virginia Wine Country on the web at http://www.virginiawine.org for a complete listing of Virginia wineries.

There you go and there you have it. Go to a local winery tasting room so you can continue your journey in the world of wine with a better understanding of how to taste wine.

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2:52 PM

We have been very thorough in providing as much information on About Wine as possible in this article. Please use it to make our efforts fruitful.We have been very thorough in providing as much information on About Wine as possible in this article. Please use it to make our efforts fruitful.

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A Featured Article

Wine Tasting

Wine Tasting Component I: Look

The first step you have to undertake in wine tasting is visual.

1. Fill up the glass up to 1/3 of its volume; never fill it more than half;

2. Hold the glass by the stem. Initially you may find this too pretentious but there are good reasons for it:

) by doing it this way you can actually observe the wine in it;

b) this will keep your fingerprints off the bowl;

c) the heat from your palm will not change the temperature of the wine.
There's a good saying by one of the greatest French wine lovers, Emil Painot: Offer someone a glass of wine and you can immediately tell whether he/she is a connoisseur by the way they hold the glass." Even though you may not think of yourself as a connoisseur, you could still learn how to hold the wine glass.

3. Focus on the color intensity and the transparency of the liquid.

a) the color of the wine, and more specifically its nuances, are best observed on a white background.

b) the wine's intensity is best judged by holding the glass without slanting it and looking at the liquid from above;

4. Next comes the swirling of the glass. This can also seem too pretentious or even dangerous if you have a full glass or a white top. But this movement is important since it prepares you for the next step in wine tasting the Taste. The easiest way to swirl the glass is to place it on a table or other even surface, and to swirl your hand while holding the glass by the stem. Swirl hard and have the wine almost touch the rim of the glass. Then stop. The wine leaves tiny traces with irregular shapes on the inside of the glass. Some "experts" then read them with as much zeal as coffee-tellers. The truth is however, that they are just an indicator for the quality of the wine the more alcohol a wine has, the more wine traces it forms.

What does the color of the wine tell us? The wine's color tells us many things about its character. First, the color shows the grape variety. Let's take two popular varieties as examples cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir. Cabernet's grapes are smaller, with a thicker and darker skin than those of pinot noir. As a result, the color of wines made from cabernet sauvignon is usually described as violet to dark while the color of wines made from pinot noir is associated with ruby.

Second, the color is influenced by the climatic conditions. A hot summer and dry fall result in ripe grapes, with a dark, intense color. A cold summer and rainy fall will produce undeveloped grapes with a lighter color.

Third, wine-making practices also have an influence on the color of wine. For red wine, the grapes are fermented with the skin. Since the coloring agents are in the grape skin, and not in the juice, the longer the process of maceration, i.e. the longer the skin stays with the juice, the darker the wine color will be.

Fourth, the process of wine aging also has an influence on the color of wine. The young red wines are rich in coloring agents and that makes their color denser and fuller. In the course of time chemical reactions take place in the bottle and a sediment is formed at the bottom. The wine's color gets lighter and is often described as brick or amber.

Let's go through an example: you pour yourself a glass of red wine and after carefully observing it, you notice a full granite color, good density, and not so good transparency. What conclusions can you draw?

Well, you can safely say that the wine is:
- from cabernet sauvignon grapes;
- from a Southern region;
- relatively young;
- from a good yield;
- that the wine-maker has gone for a good long maceration.

If you know the wine, compare what you know with what you see: maybe the wine has a very full color and the yield has been bad this speaks of a good wine-making technique; or maybe the wine is too pale for its age this speaks for undeveloped grape or poor wine-making technique.

Wine Tasting Component II: Smell

The second wine tasting component is smelling and inhaling the wine's aroma. Concentrate as much as you can and smell the wine, swirl the glass, and smell once again. The stronger the aromas, the stronger the impression. Most of the wines, especially the more delicate and the older ones develop their aromas only after "being walked around" the glass. There is no consensus as to the exact technique of whiffing. Some say do two or three quick whiffs, others prefer one single deep whiff.

The goal of whiffing is to inhale the aroma as deeply as possible so that it gets into contact with our sensory nerve and hence, with the part of the brain that is responsible for registering, storing, and deciphering sensations. The spot where that takes place is extremely sensitive: a cold or an allergy might completely block even the most intense aromas. With enough practice and concentration, you'll learn how to extract the maximum from different aromas and how to interpret them.

The vivid connoisseurs love to concoct different aromas. "Dark chocolate!" says one. "No, that's more like pepper," claims another. "Tea leaves, tobacco, and mushrooms," adds third. Are they joking??

Probably we don't quite realize it but nowadays we are exposed to so many different smells that we find it difficult to find words to describe all the complex aromas that a glass of wine can offer.
Like color, a wine's aroma can tell us a lot about its character, origin, and its history. Since our sense of taste is limited to only 4 categories (sweet, sour, bitter, and salt), the wine's aroma is the most informative part of our sensory experience. So take your time, sit back and contemplate the aroma! Like the perfume of a loved one or the smell of freshly baked bread, a wine's aroma can evoke memories of times and places that we cherish.

Wine Tasting Component III: Taste

This is the best part of wine-tasting. You might be enchanted by wine's sparkling color or mesmerized by its aroma but it's actually drinking the wine that the whole thing is about. Maybe you are thinking that drinking is the easiest part after all we start drinking from a glass from a very young age and we keep practicing for a lifetime. However, there's a real difference between just swallowing liquid and conscious tasting. Here, just like in all good things in life, the difference is in the right technique. The appropriate technique can make sure we get the best out of the whole experience.

1. Still under the influence of the aromas you've inhaled in step II, take a sip of the wine. Don't make it too big or too small. You need just enough to walk the wine in your mouth and not have to swallow it just yet. Let wine uncover its secrets. For reference, you may keep good wine in your mouth for 10 15 seconds, sometimes even more.

2. Walk the wine very well in your mouth, ensuring it touches each part of it. This is important because our tongue, palate, the inside of the mouth and our throat each detect different aspects of the wine.

For many years, it was believed that the tongue has different areas each of which is sensitive to a particular taste sweet for the tip of the tongue, sour for the sides, bitter for the back and salty for the whole tongue. Today we know that all the tastes can be felt with the whole tongue, only there's a "blind" spot in the middle of it which is not sensitive to any taste. Another important step in wine tasting is being able to tell one's impressions of the wine. "Astringent", "elegant", "fruity", "flat", "young" are only a few words of the wine vocabulary you'll need to amass.

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