With all your senses: Taste wine properly - that's how it works!

What a nice surprise - an invitation to a wine tasting! Unfortunately, you know little to nothing about wine. No problem: all you need to properly taste wine are three senses - sight, smell and taste. Sensory impressions that know no right or wrong. You can learn to judge wine; Experience builds up with time and practice. But how do you get on?

Tasting wine properly is an art! A few basic rules

Perhaps your first wine tasting will take you to a small but fine wine merchant. Where quality takes precedence over quantity and exciting variety counts. On site, under the guidance of an experienced sommelier, you will taste interesting wines in a relaxed atmosphere for the private wine cellar - or, as a restaurateur, you will receive inspiration for your wine list. For the best concentration, disturbing influences such as spicy food, coffee or smoking are taboo. A sip of water and some white bread are enough to get you started. The wine is ready - decanted and suitably tempered.

Now a thin-walled glass is selected. The first wine is swirled around in the glass: the walls are in full contact with the wine. This wine is then poured out. The glass is now neutral, with no foreign aromas or detergent residue. So that nothing falsifies the impression, you also have to handle the wine glass properly. Because your hand emits heat, it has no place near the cup. Instead, grab the glass by the stem. The smaller the wine glass, the fewer fingers should grip it: thumb and forefinger are sufficient for a delicate white wine glass, while the ring finger helps with a large red wine glass.

More than red, white or rosé: examine wine visually

Your hand gently waves the glass, your eye observes: What color is the wine? The spectrum reveals a lot about age and quality, grape and fermentation. Red wines present themselves - from light to dark - as copper-colored, brick red, garnet red, ruby ​​red and violet. In the case of white wines, the classification is based on intensity - from straw to yellow and gold to amber. A rose can appear pink, salmon or copper. Red wines become lighter with age, white wines darker. Is your wine dark red in the middle and more crimson to violet towards the edge? Most likely, your chosen one is a younger wine. Does this age later - e.g. B. six months in oak barrels to the Crianza and then to the Reserva - its nuance changes to orange-red or brown. Because with long storage, the color pigments sink to the bottom. Nevertheless, a dark red wine is not automatically younger, but could just come from a hotter growing area or a colorful grape variety. A young white initially appears slightly greenish or straw yellow, turning to a golden hue with maturity and age. Important: View the wine against a neutral background, such as a white napkin or piece of paper. Then enter your color discoveries in the tasting note provided. In addition to ready-made selection options, there is also space to write down individual impressions.

Always follow your nose! smell wine

After visually inspecting your wine, immerse yourself in its bouquet. Brief, bold swirling intensifies the aroma impression. What am I dealing with? Is the wine flowery, rather fruity, mineral, woody or does it smell of herbs? Which aromas appear are determined, among other things, by Grape variety, fermentation and aging process, and cask type. White wines reveal z. B. citrus fruits such as lemon or grapefruit, but also tropical from pineapple to mango. Red wine flavors inspire with strawberry, raspberry, blackberry or blueberry. Your wine comes from an American oak barrel? Tobacco or coffee aromas are not uncommon here, while French wines like to reveal their origin through spices ranging from nutmeg to vanilla. Go ahead - put your nose in the glass and take a short but deep breath. What is your first impression?

Give less dominant, hidden nuances a chance by repeating the tasting with your nose at short intervals. Then write down your impressions. But consider this: No nose, no perception is like the other. It depends on which olfactory memories your memory has already stored in order to compare them with the current experience of the wine tasting. Whether you currently have a cold, wear perfume or are a smoker also plays a role in the rating.

How does the wine taste? maturation processes

The three main taste categories primary, secondary and tertiary with grape variety and terroir determine this. Primary flavors taste particularly intense - e.g. B. after spices or fruits - with practically unlimited bandwidth. Secondary aromas can be just as intense and wide-ranging, but only develop later, during fermentation. Finally, tertiary aromas unfold with increasing maturity - in the bottle or in the barrel. A process in which spicy and fruity molecules decouple in order to then freshly dock onto other structures. The result? An exciting spectrum of aromas.

Finally! Now the wine can be tasted

There are four basic tastes to discover: sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Each direction is tasted in a special mouth area. Sweet is reserved for the tip of the tongue. We taste salty at the bottom of the tongue, sour at the top and bitter at the end of the tongue. Each wine offers all four flavors; You can recognize a good wine by the harmony of these four taste aspects. With the right technique you will experience maximum taste. The texture of the wine is also revealed on the palate: how does it feel in the mouth? Velvety, creamy or oily? To do this, sip a tablespoon of wine, keep it in your mouth, roll it on the palate and "chew" it gently. What is his character like? Fresh and light? Or imposing and substantial? Take your time. What's on your mind? First intuition is rarely wrong. Only then do you feel more precisely: where in the mouth does this wine taste how - and how intensively? Now you can swallow - and check: What aftertaste do I observe - and for how long? If the wine evaporates immediately afterwards, there could still be room for improvement in quality.

Your conclusion: How does the wine perform overall?

Now comes the moment of decision: does this wine live up to my expectations or is it a disappointment? Or, to put it another way - not everything that smells intensely also has to taste intensely. All of the nuances and observations on colour, age and intensity that you identified during the wine tasting are now neatly noted on your tasting note, supplemented by your own personal discoveries. You are already a freshly baked connoisseur with testing competence. Does your candidate have what it takes to be their favorite wine? The fact is: A good wine is a balanced wine - and as such, it passes all phases of the tasting with flying colors!