How to taste wine - advanced technique

Tips and guides to better enjoy wine Food & wine pairings guide All the italian DOC and DOCG wines Wine dictionary 2011 wine guides - features and comparisons Easy guide to Vinitaly 2011

Inserisci la tua azienda
Scopri la nostra offerta Complete catalog of wineries Join the conversation
Forum All the wineries
on the Google map Community poll
Want to write a wine blog?

Click on a region to view the regional wineries

Mappa Italia.

How to taste wine - advanced technique

Useful Tips

The technique of wine tasting, how to taste wine, learn to taste wine, taste the wines in a professional manner, guide to Italian wine tasting

How to taste wine, wine tasting techniques, wine tasting in a professional manner

Tasting a wine, means submitting it to a series of sensory tests designed to determine and describe the characteristics of the wine.

Recognize the visual smell and taste characteristics of a wine requires on one hand great sensitivity, which has to be trained, and on the other a good technical and theoretical knowledge of method of tasting.

If, therefore, from a theoretical point of view, this guide provides all the tools to taste and recognize the characteristics of a wine, it is certainly not able to provide the amount of experience needed to properly describe a wine: to become excellent tasters you should taste as many wines as possible each time trying to recognize the different characteristics.

A good sommelier is training constantly, just as an athlete, to refine the sensitivity of his eyes, of his nose and of his mouth.

The tasting of wine is divided into three distinct phases, that capture the different characteristics of wine:

Visual Examination	Olfactory Examination	Gustatory Examination
The visual inspection is the first analysis that you submit the wine to obtain general information, which must be confirmed by further analysis. Characteristics to be assessed are: Limpidity Color Consistency Effervescence	The olfacrory analysis the second crucial step in wine tasting. It is at this stage that you should capture the different scents of wine, revealing the possible pairings, the type of wine and, not least, possible defects. Characteristics to be assessed are: Intensity Complexity Quality After the analysis of the scent we make a brief description helping with aromas of substances already known.	The last step is the analysis of taste, that gives us the definitive indications on the wine: they can confirm or deny what we have seen the first two tests. Characteristics to be assessed are: Soft sensation Hard sensation Structure of Body Balance Intensity Persistence Quality
Final Considerations
Complete the three previous analysis, is the time to gather all data into an organic whole and draw conclusions on the wine just tasted. You give an assessment of: Evolutionary state of wine Harmony