How to TASTE WINE – Part 1

by Brenton Maarman

CCitrus or tropical? Blackcurrant or plum? Chocolate or cigar box? Wooded or unwooded? Are these terms puzzling you when you do a wine tasting?

Wine tasting used to be an activity for the elite and sophisticated. However, tasting wine is now an activity enjoyed by many and younger consumers make it trendy by posting it on various social media platforms. Due to social media posting, more people show an interest in wine, but one question always pops up in wine conversations: How do you taste wine in the correct manner?

The secret is that anyone can taste wine – all you need is a glass of wine and your brain. This article forms part of a series of articles that will focus on how to taste wines in an unpretentious and fun way, how to taste white wine, uncorking red wines, tasting the stars of sparkling wine and hitting the sweet spot with dessert wines.

First of all, there are four basic wine tasting steps:

Visual appearance: It focuses on the colour, clarity or transparency of the wine. Colour gives you an indication of the age of the wine. The general rule is that a white wine deepens in colour as it ages while a red wine loses colour and gets lighter as it ages. The clarity provides an indication of the quality of the winemaking technique and whether or not the bottle has been properly handled. If a wine has haziness, it is considered a fault.

Smell: You must rely on your nose to pick up aromas. Start off by asking yourself if you can smell any fruit aromas. Think of broad categories, such as citrus, orchard or tropical fruits in white wines. When tasting red wines, you might smell red fruits, blue fruits or black fruits. In order to answer this question, it is important that you build an aroma library in your brain. It sounds complicated but it is not. You must just remember different aromas you encounter, for example when you cut fruit and vegetables, spray your favourite perfume, cook with certain spices, smell flowers, etc. This will help you identify aromas in wines.

Taste: This is how the tongue perceives the wine. Your taste buds are located on the tongue in folds and ridges known as papillae, and also on the palate and on the wall of the throat. There are three types of taste papillae. They are classified according to their morphology: fungiform, foliate and circumvallate (Figure 1). Fungiform papillae occur primarily on the anterior two-thirds of the tongue. The circumvallate papillae develop along a V-shaped zone across the back of the tongue, whereas foliate papillae are restricted to two sets of parallel ridges between folds along the posterior margins of the tongue.

Diagram courtesy of Wine Folly. Scan the QR code or visit: https://bit.ly/43wd1Wf

Learn more! Scan the QR code or visit https://youtu.be/pJ_6QOa5Us to watch the video: “How To Taste Wine” Published by Wine Folly.

There are five basic tastes: sweet, salty, bitter, sour and umami (a savoury taste). Figure 2 indicates where on your tongue you detect these five tastes. Wine can be classified according to these tastes but once you swallow the wine, the aromas may change because you are receiving them retro-nasally. This adds another interesting layer to your wine-tasting experience.

Think/conclude: The connoisseurs would advise you to develop a profile of the wine that you can store in your longterm memory, but ultimately the most important aspect is to just decide whether you like the wine or not!

These steps set the tone for tasting. In in a following issue, the main white wine varietals in South Africa will be discussed by referring to appearance, aromas and taste. Until then practice the four steps that were discussed because a day without wine is like a day without sunshine.

References

Elsenburg Agricultural Training Institute

The Elsenburg Agricultural Training Institute is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year. It has a rich heritage of agricultural training and prides itself on being one of three higher education training institutes in South Africa that offers a three-year degree or diploma in Cellar Technology. AP

Elsenburg Agricultural Training Institute. 2020. Wine evaluation, Aroma. Class notes. Elsenburg Agricultural Training Institute, Stellenbosch

Gaiser, T. 2010. Tim Gaiser, Master Sommelier. 22 November 2022. (www.timgaiser.com)

Puckette, M & Hammack, J. 2022. Winefolly. 22 November 2022. (winefolly.com/deep-dive/how-totaste-wine-develop-palate)

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