Wine Lover: Wine tasting at a glance

When wine professionals approach a glass of wine, they always do it analytically.
This statement may be antithetical for the average wine drinker. Most people are having a glass of wine to casually relax, not to do an analysis.
It’s true that the average wine lover doesn’t always need to pay close attention to what he or she is drinking, but one shouldn’t always ignore it, either.
I know people who having been drinking wine seriously for a year, and they already have a good palette and decent knowledge. I also know people who have been drinking wine for 30 years and have no palette and zero knowledge. The difference is in their approach.
When I approach a glass of wine, I first look at its color, then move on to smell, and finally finish by tasting it.
Color can give you many clues as to what the wine will be like. Some red wines are an intensely dark purple, while others can be a pale, brick-like color. Color can tell you age and sometimes whether the wine is likely to be full-bodied or light-bodied.
Smell, believe it or not, is more important then taste. There are a great variety of things a wine can smell like. Pinot noir often smells like baked cherries, nebbiolo often smells like tobacco leaves or tar, Riesling sometimes smells like petroleum and chardonnay oftentimes smells like butter or bananas. I’ve smelled things as weird as bell pepper, toothpaste and bouillon cubes in a glass of wine (not all at once, of course).
When I blind-taste a flight of wines, I depend on the smell far more than on the taste. Many varietals and terroirs have a unique smell, and the more you take an analytical approach, the more you notice patterns. Left-bank Bordeaux always smells like gravel to me, and Santa Cruz pinot noir often takes on a cherry characteristic.
One important tip when smelling a wine is to get your nose as far in the glass as possible. It is difficult to smell the wine well with your nose a few inches away from the glass.
Taste is also extremely important — and enjoyable. When tasting a wine, you are looking for a variety of identifiable characteristics. Acidity, body, tannin and sweetness are all important things to look for.
Think of body like you think of milk. A light-bodied wine will feel in the mouth like a nonfat milk, and a full bodied wine will feel like a whole milk, or maybe even like half-and-half.
Acidity makes your mouth water. If your mouth is watering after you take a sip and the outsides of your tongue are tingling, the wine is most likely high in acidity.
Remember, wine tasting should always be fun, but it’s even more fun when you are learning about wine at the same time. Having a wine knowledge only adds to the enjoyment of tasting. Cheers!
– Austin Twohig is a certified sommelier and partner in The Santa Cruz Experience, which conducts winery tours in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Email him at au****@th********************.com.