Go Wine Tasting

Wine tasting is a great year round activity. You can learn to expertly distinguish the flavors of wines at your own home. Wine tasting is also a great way to support local agriculture. Many areas have local wineries that offer tours and wine tasting, and this is a great way to support these local businesses. You will also find that wine tasting is a great activity to enjoy when you go on vacation. You can even plan a vacation expressly to visit some of the best wineries in the country and even the world.

There are a few steps in wine tasting. The first step is the color. In this step you simply look at the wine. You may want to place your wine glass up against a white background in order to more easily evaluate the color of the wine. In the color step you are trying to determine the precise color and clarity of the wine. Pay attention to the hue of the color as well as determining if the wine is cloudy or clear, if it is opaque or translucent and if it is brilliant or dull.

The second step in wine tasting is the smell. Start by swirling the wine in your glass for a few seconds. This will help vaporize some of the wine, then you take  a quick whiff of the vaporized wine. Your first quick whiff will give you your first impression of  the wine. Then take a longer sniff of the wine, by placing your nose into your wine glass. With this second whiff you will get a stronger impression of the wine and you can more completely evaluate the different scents in the wine.

Your third step is to taste the wine. Start with a small sip of the wine. Roll this first sip of wine around in your mouth. At this stage you are simply determining the initial impression that the wine makes. In this first taste you will get your impression of the alcohol content, the tannin, the acidity and the sugar in the wine. These components of the wine should be well balanced. These components will give you impressions of the intensity and complexity of the wine, whether it is dry or sweet, creamy, crisp, heavy or light. At this stage you are not trying to get specific flavors.

The next step is to take a full taste of the wine, to get an actual taste on the palate. At this stage you are trying to distinguish the flavor s of the wine. You are trying to determine what types of flavors you can determine in the wine, red and white wines have very different flavors. If you are tasting red wine you will want to determine if its fruity or spicy or woody, you may even taste some smokiness. If you are tasting a white wine you will be looking for more floral flavors, it may even be earthy.

Finally, you will want to determine the finish of the wine. when you finally swallow the wine, the finish is how long the flavors last after you have swallowed. You will want to distinguish how long the flavors last, if the wine is light or full bodied, and if after your initial taste if you want to have more of the wine.

If you enjoy wine, you can take classes that will help you develop your skill in wine tasting. A class will teach you about different wines and the specific steps in wine tasting. As you become more experienced you may want to visit different wineries to try all different types of wine.