Wine Tasting 101 The Nose Knows

I am sure that there are many things more pleasurable than a great glass of wine, but when I have a glass of wine in my hands with its intoxicating aroma I am hard pressed to think of what those things may be. A great glass of wine is one of the best sensory experiences available to us. In fact if you are not using all of your senses to enjoy that wine then you are depriving yourself of ever recognizing the full complexity of the wine that you are drinking.

Take your sense of smell for example. Our sense of smell is possible the most important sense available to use food and wine lovers. Our tongue by itself is incredibly limiting, it can only identify sour, sweet, bitter, and salty tastes. So where do all those other flavor impressions come from? I

It is our sense of smell that lets us recognize a much wider variety of tastes and makes the experience of eating and drinking so enjoyable. So, why don't we put our sense of small to use on our next glass of wine? Here is how to do it.

The first thing you need to do is pick the wine you want to drink and then pick the appropriate stemware to go with it. The type of glass is really that important, but it can help a little bit with sorting out various fragrances. White wines for example do better with narrow rim glasses because they hold the aroma of the white wine, which is usually rather delicate, in a smaller space make it easier to smell the wine's fragrance. Red wines have a much stronger aroma so we do not want to confine it to s small space, we need to give it a little room to breathe. This is why using a wide rimmed glass for red wines is desirable. After you have poured your wine into your glass just give it a quick sniff. Do not get your nose to close to the wine and do not linger over it. Your goal here is not to identify individual scents, rather you are trying to form a general impression of the wine.

After you have done this it is time to give the wine a swirl. Swirling our serves several purposes. For our sense of smell it does something very important. It clears some of the alcohol vapors from the glass. Alcohol vapors inhibit our ability to smell the real aroma of the wine ... and frankly they do not smell very nice.

After you have swirled the wine go ahead and stick your nose into the glass and really smell the wine. Unlike the quick sniff you took before your goal now is to identify as many unique scents are you can. You want to smell the full range of the wines fragrance. What I like to do is compare the impressions I got from taking a quick sniff of the wine to the impressions I got after I stuck my nose in the glass. It is interesting to see how well these impressions line up with one another, often you will find your first impression is far different from your second.

When I taste wine I go through this process several times before I actually take my first sip. Then after I take a sip of the wine I like to smell the wine again to see if it has changed any of my impressions. You will be amazed at how different your initial impression of the wine can be after you have gone through this tasting process. Compare notes with your friends and see how their impressions differ from your own.

Most of all have fun! Wine is meant to be enjoyed so do not take it to seriously, but you will find that your appreciation of the wine goes up immensely after you have gone through a proper tasting.

Article Source: Addon Dashboard -- Free Articles, Free Web Content

To learn more about wine visit: California Wine Country

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated