11 Practical Tips For Wine Tasting

The Chosen One

Few people realize that I was chosen by God to sell wine.

Sort of. Well, not exactly.

But it’s a much stronger opening for this story. It makes me sound important. So, I’m sticking with it.

I was actually chosen by Sakowitz Department store in Houston, Texas but that’s close enough to God for our purposes today. And, as I have mentioned elsewhere, it lifted me out of being the assistant Bozo the Clown for a Houston television station.

When becoming a wine salesman increases your social status, you really need to re-think your place in society. But, that’s exactly what it did. I don’t think being the assistant Bozo was a lower social class than serial killers or Democrats in Texas but it was close.

At any rate, upon arriving at Sakowitz on my first day, I had never tasted wine in my life. I had been at a party once where somebody had a lukewarm bottle of Cold Duck, but I opted out for Jack Daniels on the rocks.

The point is, I had to learn to taste wine from scratch.

Fortunately for us both, dear reader, I’m not going to relate the next 45 years of learning in detail, but instead, I will summarize those years into a quick reference guide for newbies and pros alike.

4 Practical tips to Set up the tasting

There are a few things you need to do before actually tasting.

Glasses

Curiously, no matter how many thousands of gallons of wine you have, you still have to have something to pour it in to achieve a proper wine tasting practice. I’m going with wine glasses here, although mason jars, tastevins (which winemakers use), my tightly cupped palms, and Dixie cups all work, too.

Cut glass wine glasses like those popular in Germany and England definitely raise your social class, but they diffuse the light and make it impossible to know what the wine actually looks like.

Cut glass can be beautiful, awe inspiring even, but they are terrible for tasting wine.

Wine glasses come in all kinds of shapes and colors and thicknesses. Some shapes are traditional for certain regions--Champagne for instance, or Burgundy. But, for tasting, the most important thing is that they be clear and clean--no cut glass or colors.

Generally speaking, washing wine glasses in a dishwasher screws up the taste of the wine. That film that prevents water stains on the glass blocks the glycerin tearing (“legs”) that you want to see in order to evaluate the wine.

Soap often lingers after cleaning so make sure glasses are washed thoroughly, or the soap will linger and change the smell and taste of the wine. Smell the empty glass before pouring the wine in and see if there are any lingering soap smells.

Ambient Aromas

Perfumes and colognes are great for many occasions, but not for wine training. Flowers, air sprays, atomizers---even carpet cleaners can mask the aromas of the wines.

Try for a space as well ventilated as possible so the aromas from the wines don't hang in the air and all mix together. This also rules out truck stops, parking lots and diesel submarines as poor choices for staging a wine tasting.

Wine Temperatures

The colder any wine is, the less you can taste it. Generally white wines should be stored at the temperature of the chalk caves in France--about 50-55 degrees Fahrenheit. Reds are not served at room temperature if you live in Arizona or Florida. They should be slightly warmer than whites--the temperature that reds come out of the caves in Burgundy is 60-65 degrees Fahrenheit.

Breathing

Wines breathe--exchanging oxygen with molecules in the wine just like your lungs.

The longer the wine is open, the older it will taste. It's rare these days but there are still some young, great wines full of tannin that benefit from being put in a decanter. Or, you can pour it in your glass and taste it at intervals to see how it changes which is a lot more interesting.

Keep notes of the changes if you're up for it.

Aromas are usually described by the smells of common foods.

5 Practical Physical Tips to Wine Tasting

You have five physical senses which means there are five steps which are best done in the order below. I have gone into great detail on all of these in my ebook, “Wine and the Five Senses: a winery owner’s guide to tasting wine.” © Larry Leigon, 2022, all rights reserved.

1. Look (color)—begin with observation. A lot of people miss the basics when they are in a hurry to get to the alcohol. Watch for the legs (glycerin), variations in color, changes in color due to the context or lighting, and any impurities—like precipitate (tiny little rocks, sort of)—that may indicate the wine has been too hot. Experience will teach you what different wines should look like, and how older wines vary.

2. Smell (aroma)—Smells can fill a whole encyclopedia. Generally, they are divided into common groups like fruit, or wood or vegetables, etc. I have written about this extensively in other places but it’s easy enough to check out YouTube and get some guidance.
   After the wine is in your mouth, you breathe out through your nose in order to pick up the subtleties of aroma. This takes a little practice since your basic gag reflex will cause you to cough and spit the wine out your nose, which in public immediately raises social and laundry issues both.
   Try not to laugh while you are blowing air out your nose. Really. You’ve been warned.

3. Taste —Taste buds are all over the inside of your mouth, not just the tongue. So, paying attention to what distinctions you notice can be helpful here. There are only five tastes, or six depending on whether you are from the Western hemisphere or the Eastern. The trick is to be able to tell smell from taste. It takes a little practice.

4. Touch (texture, physicality) The textures of wine are usually called “mouth feel,” which is, well you know, the way the wine feels in your mouth. All the usual textures apply here. The alcohol and the sugar have major impacts on the mouth feel of a wine.

5. Listen. (Music, vibrations)— I know, I know. Wine School doesn’t bring this part up. The sound of wine going into the glass, especially champagne, can be romantic but there is a profound effect of music on both the taste of wine and on how your brain processes it.

3 Practical Tips to the Mental Part of Wine Tasting

The First Key

To taste wine, what you are looking for is the direct sensory experience of your first impression—before you think about it. You can go back to the wine as often as you like but after the first impression, what you notice about color or aroma or whatever is then dependent on and organized around that first impression.

Wine tasting has at least one thing in common with athletes--and artists--you need focus and confidence. Doubts and fears of looking bad or letting people down distract you from what your senses are telling you. A mind filled up with social consequences has no room for surprises or insights.

The Second Key:

Right after those first unforced images or impressions, your mind will flood itself with assumptions based on what you learned in the past—trying to help you out. This is where I see a lot of people make mistakes.

​If that first hit is of blueberries say, then your mind wants to fill in with all the other wines and associations you have with blueberries---deciding it's a Burgundy for instance and filling in with your Burgundy memories. Or, thinking about that blueberry scone you want tomorrow or the patch of blueberries your grandmother made blueberry wine from.

Try to bring a beginner's mind each time you go back and check your first impression.

That helping out part is coming from the part of you that knows facts about wine—that’s not necessarily wrong. But, it shuts the door on insight that comes from direct sensory experience of your first impression.​

The Third Key

The fear of not smelling anything is always in the back of your mind if you’re not doing this all the time.

If you breathe in that first smell and you get nothing, that's OK. Everybody gets nothing sometimes. If you stick your nose in the glass and come up blank, don’t worry. Just wait. Sometimes there really is nothing there. Certain Sauvignon Blancs for instance are indistinguishable from ice water. Don’t get me started on Albariño.​

Remember:

Most people feel obligated to say something right away so they compulsively blurt out things like, “It’s a little like old strawberries growing on the west face of Mount Waxahatchie” or “Tastes like diesel fuel to me.”

If you’re uncertain just nod your head and wait for somebody else to say something and agree with them.

Lots of people aren’t there for the wine at all, of course. They are there to make a deal, or impress that cute whoever from work, or, against all reason, for the food.

It’s also true that some people just want to get plowed.

In passing, I’ll just note that Jack Daniels does that quicker and to greater effect if that’s your goal.