WINE REGION SLO CAL strawberries, pepper, or tobacco, while a white will often give off scents of citrus or banana. Keep in mind, there are no wrong answers! Lastly, have a sip. Remember, taste and smell go hand-in-hand—those little buds on your tongue only take in so much information, your nose actually does most of the work in tasting. The key here is to sip judiciously as you consider five aspects of what you are experiencing: balance, harmony, complexity, evolution and completeness.
SITTING DOWN Okay, let’s dive deeper now into those five aspects. Balance. Our taste buds are wired to detect sweet and sour, salty and bitter. Bitter wine is caused by tannins— the pucker power of a wine—that are found in the skin, seeds, and stems of the grape. In red wine, the entire grape is processed, whereas in white wine, it’s mostly just the juice that is used. Tannins are a plant’s defense mechanism to deter animals, like deer, from eating a plant’s fruit before it’s ripe. Generally, you’ll find more pucker in a younger red wine that has not had the chance to soften. However, the most common components of wine run on a spectrum between sweet and sour. A wine that would be described as having “good balance,” means those two attributes are relatively equal. Harmony. As we know, not all flavors go together (pickles and peanut butter, anyone?). The degree of flavor harmony contained within any given wine is just that, a measure of how well the various tastes complement one another. This is a key, but commonly overlooked factor. Complexity. This is probably the most overused and least understood aspect of wine. Very simply, a wine is complex if its flavors tend to change as they sit on the tongue. This is why it is important to sip and then savor, allowing the wine to fully reveal itself before sipping again. Evolution. How does the wine change from the point it touches the lips through to the swallow? Does the experience deepen, or does it flatten? Is there more to it than expected, or less? Do flavors continue coming, or is it a “one-hit wonder” with a series of similar tastes? Completeness. Oftentimes, this is referred to as aftertaste or finish. In other words, how does it sit? Some wines go down well, others linger on the tongue momentarily, but the great ones remain. Recognizing the completeness of wine requires patience, allowing time for it to appear. 76
|
SLO CAL 2022
| Life’s Too Beautiful to Rush®
WHAT’S IN THE GLASS No crash course in wine tasting can be considered complete without at least a rudimentary knowledge of the glass itself. While the first silver goblets were believed to have originated with the Romans in the third century, it was with their distant ancestors—the fourteenth century Venetians—where glassmaking was perfected, and the wine glass as we know it today was first made. When it comes to wine tasting, the thinner the glass the better. The thin rim makes for a smooth transition from the glass to the mouth and enhances the drinking experience. All wine glasses are comprised of the same four components: the rim, the bowl, the stem and the foot. Let’s go bottom-to-top. The foot is the flat base section of the glass. The stem sits atop the foot—it’s important to note here, that holding the glass by the stem is recommended because it prevents your hands from warming the wine and keeps it at its proper temperature. And that stem connects to the bottom of the bowl, which is the part that holds the wine. The rim, then, is the top of the bowl where we rest our lips to take in a sip. Simple, right? Well, not always. There are as many different types of wine glasses as there are varietals. But don’t get too bogged down in the details because like so many things with wine, there’s a lot of subjectivity and so much of this is dictated by how it feels in your hand. Generally speaking, reds are best in big, wide-open bowls— the surface area within the bowl allows the wine to breathe and enhances its aromas and flavors— while whites tend to fit best in smaller, narrower containers because they don’t need all that space to breathe, and the smaller surface area preserves the delicate, subtle aroma. There is also a newer, universal glass, which works well for all wines. No matter the size or shape, however, the amount to pour is important. You never want to fill it to the rim. Instead, a typical serving should be right around five ounces, or 150 milliliters, which means that a standard 750-milliliter bottle should allow for five glasses. So, now that you know how to sip wine like an industry insider, get out there and experience the best SLO CAL has to offer.
SCAN QR CODE FOR DETAILS