Tasting Wine

Sorry for being MIA, folks! I have been occupied with travels, and school work, etc. I promise there will be no more delays! Now then! Let’s get to the fun stuff! Tasting the wine!! Let’s first learn a little about taste buds. This will help you understand how you pick up certain tastes in different wines. And hopefully, after reading this post, you take a little more time to savor each wine and not just swoosh once and gulp!

To right is a picture depicting the different areas of taste buds. This is known as the “tongue map”. However, I can’t vouch for how terribly accurite this map is. There is sufficient evidence from multiple sources that the Tongue Map diagram is wrong. We can taste Bitterness, Saltiness, Sourness, Sweetness, and even the fifth rarely talked about taste, Umami, in all sides of the tongue. This kind of defeats the purpose of using a different wine glass for different wines, as the varieties were designed to cater to taste buds in these different areas of the tongue. I for one, however, still insist on using particular glasses for particular wines, if for merely traditional and aesthetic purposes! The average person has between 5,000 and 15,000 taste buds. Taste buds are sensory cells that are regularly replaced through a lifetime. It’s quite a phenomenon. So much so, that scientists are studying ways to replicate the process with other types of cells, such as damaged nerve cells.

When you take a sip of wine, let it aerate in your mouth by letting it linger on your tongue. Roll it around a bit, allowing all your taste receptors to get a taste. A good wine leaves 3 impressions: A first, a middle, and a lasting one. These can be determined by mouthfeel. Mouthfeel refers to how a wine feels in your mouth. Is it a light wine? Heavy wine? Is it silky? Prickly? Drying? The weight of the fruit is referred to “the body” of a wine. This can be felt in the middle of the tongue. Ask your self how acidic the wine was. Was is too much? Not enough? Just right? How about the tannin? Tannin is a tactile sensation that when, found in young reds, or reds with too much, often dries out the mouth. The Aftertaste is the overall balance of the components in the wine that are left lingering in your mouth.

I hope this has enticed some of you to go out to your nearest wine bar and enjoy the special sensations of wine tasting! Come back soon for more informative posts! :)

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Wine Tasting Pt. 1

It’s called wine tasting for a reason. In the Archaic definition, “tasting” is to enjoy or appreciate. Tasting wine allows you to use all your senses and to indulge in all its aspects. That being said, everyone’s taste is his or her own. I’m not going to tell you what is considered good or bad taste in this post, but I am giving you here a few essential steps to follow before you decide to chug that fine piece of liquid you hold in your hand. First, let’s look at color. Hold your glass up to the lightest background you can find around you (preferably a white wall).  Here are the color ranges for white & red, starting with youngest to mature:

Whites

Pale yellow-green, Straw yellow, Yellow-gold, Old gold,

Yellow-brown, Maderized, Brown

Red

Purple, Ruby, Red, Red brick, Red-brown, Brown


Not only can age give a wine more color, but being aged in wood would also give the wine a much deeper color than if the wine is aged in stainless steel tanks. Grape varieties can have an effect on the color as well. An example being Chardonnay, which is usually be a bit darker than a Riesling.

Apparently, there seems to be several different ways to swirl. In California, I noticed a lot of wine tasters swirling their glasses by firmly planting them on the table and then grasping the nape of the stem with their first and middle fingertips and then proceeding to gently nudge the glass in a clockwise fashion. This swirl helps prevent spillage. In Tuscany, however, I learned another way of swirling, which is said to help contain the bouquet (fragrance) for smelling. What you do is, pick up the glass with your left hand and pass it to your right, where you grab it by pinching the nape of the stem with your thumb and index finger. The other three fingers go under the glass for support. Next you cover the mouth of the glass with your left hand and swirl with your right. As your aerating the scent by swirling, this particular swirl is said to hold the scent in the glass. As you swirl, you are mixing oxygen into the wine. This mixes with the ethers, esters, and aldehydes and helps release the bouquet.

Smell is probably the most crucial step to wine tasting. Wine should be breathed in at least three times. Most people don’t give this step much attention, and simply take a quick sniff before they indulge into the sip. I assure you, if you want to truly learn about wine, you can not neglect this step. A human’s tongue has four tastes: Sweet, Sour, Salt, and Bitter. However, the nose can pick up over 2,000 different smells! Wine alone, has over 200. Therefore, taking a good 3+ whiffs is well worth it if you want to not only learn more about what you are about to drink, but also indulge your senses! Memorizing the smell of certain grapes helps you identify the uniqueness of the wine you are enjoying. Memorizing the grape varieties also helps you learn which wines you prefer and which you don’t care for much.

The three major grapes for whites are:

Chardonnay

Sauvignon Blanc

Riesling

The major Reds are:

Pinot Noir

Merlot

Cabernet Sauvignon

In my next post, I will cover the actual “tasting” part. Please, feel free to leave any comments, stories, or suggestions in the comments section. Also as always, if you find any errors in any of these posts, feel free to email me any corrections or suggestions you’d like to make!! This is a learning experience, and it’s best we all share what we know! :)

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Vine to Glass

Hmm.. Definitely not ripe..

Before I even touch on the subject of tasting, it’s important to know a few facts about the wine-making process to be able to understand what goes into making a wine delightful or downright atrocious.

The Harvest

Let’s begin with the Harvest. This can take place as early as August, or as late as October. Winemaker’s taste the grapes to determine their ripeness. (See picture –>)

Ripeness can vary greatly, depending on the region’s climate and that specific year’s weather. For example, in the Chianti region in Tuscany, where the valleys are cooler, the harvest can begin around late September. An early harvest means that the fruit is less ripe. This means it produces less oil, (which makes Tuscan olive oils more rare than others!). After the harvest, the grapes are taken to the winery where they are crushed into juice.

You can find many festivals in Italy around the Harvest time. In Poggibonsi, there is a festival that includes, grape crushing, contests, and dancing! Check this site for more information: http://www.pigio.net/

Whites & Reds

At the winery, the grapes for white and red wine are separated. For reds, the juice includes, the grapes, the skins, and the seeds. For whites, either white (green) grapes are used, or the skins of the red grapes and seeds are removed from the juice.

Whites go through two presses. The first press, known as the Free Run, produces a clear liquid. The second press, known as the Press Juice, uses a winemaker for which extracts the juice with a much heavier amount of pressure. Both juices are filtered and fermented separately.

Fermentation

The wine contents are then poured into stainless steal fermenting tanks. Fermentation occurs when yeast consumes sugar and converts it into approximately half alcohol and half CO2 gas by weight. The winemaker usually adds yeast to the tanks for this to happen.

Aging

After fermentation, the wine is then poured into aging oak barrels. Racking is when the wine is pumped from one barrel to another. This process is quite common. This helps to remove any solids from the wine. After some months, the wine is moved to a single barrel. There it remains for the duration of the aging process. The aging time varies greatly, from months, to years. Typically reds, aging for years and whites aging for much shorter periods.

Packaging

After aging, the wine is packaged, shipped and ready to be enjoyed!

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In Vino Veritas

 

Whether you’re a wine connoisseur, or a novice; You have to admit, Wine is great. Very few things allow you practice poise, while simultaneously allowing inebriation. But perhaps one of the most satisfying elements of wine for me, is the process that went into the serving in my glass. I’m a romantic, so to know that that what I’m drinking had a life of sunshine and a series of different processes, makes my heart skip a beat a little. If it’s an aged wine, I think about the year it was harvested. What was I doing at the time? Was I even alive around that time? What was happening in the world? Someone once referred to wine, as an analogy of life. Every little decision seems to have had an impact on its direction, its outcome, its personality, and ultimately what is in the glass. The human history, the geology, the passion, and the sensuality are all of what makes wine so special. And because our sense of smell is directly connected to an area of the brain that promotes memories; The aroma of a wine can even take us back in time.

I am in no way a wine connoisseur. I didn’t grow up in the Tuscan fields of Chianti. I didn’t go to a school in Bordeaux to learn fermentation. And I didn’t have a wealthy father who brought home the best cases in Napa. No, I am merely a novice who fell in love with this “drink of the gods”.

This year, I decided to finally immerse myself into the difficult (but fun) task of learning all there is to know about wine. I am currently traveling through Europe. Not for related reasons. However, I have made it a point to learn something about the country and region I am visiting through wine. The saying is true; there is truth in wine. And I don’t mean drunk people tell no lies, because I lie my ass off when I’m tipsy. Rather, I mean that in the way that wine tells a tale of it’s origins. The people, the land, and the passion that went into it.

I hope I’m able to present everything I learn in a way that is helpful and entertaining for those of you who would like to learn along with me! Please feel free to contribute any thoughts, feelings, suggestions, (or corrections!) at any point in the comments section of any of my posts! Thanks you!

Saluté!!

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