How to Taste Wine at a Local Wine Festival

If this Sommelier were to attend a local Wine Festival, the following is how I would approach tasting at such an event. (The Naperville Wine Festival is near…) http://www.napervillewinefestival.com/


Sommeliers taste wine to objectively assess wine for quality and faults. We are trained to put our personal tastes aside. Since this is a fun and entertaining tasting, I would taste the wines I enjoy. Observing several hundred wines in the program, I would first walk the entire event, discovering all of the offerings, styles, and wines represented. I would decide which wines I am really excited about. I always taste these first. Your tongue and mouth are mussels, and tasting many wines will make you mentally and physically exhausted. The reality is you’re not going to be able to taste all of the wines. Don’t rush, less is more!  Quality always over quantity.

In a restaurant or trade tasting, I always taste white wines first, reds second, and dessert wines last. Sommeliers are trained to speed taste. The reality of a wine festival is the wines are spread across a vast area and this is not pragmatic to taste in the aforementioned order. I make sure I have a bottle of water with me to cleanse my palate between tastes. This also comes in handy to rinse your tasting glass between wines. Utilize the spit buckets! You don’t want to alter your state of mind to effectively taste wine. I always carry a pen and note the wines that I enjoy in the program listings.  Take lots of notes to remember what you tasted.

Your tasting companions should be friends that are open minded and there to learn, enjoy, be in good conversation, and taste wine. Keep groups small if possible. If your companions are going because they want to get inebriated, tell them to stay home or go elsewhere. The romance, mystique, and pleasure of wine are destroyed with such dubious characters. They are going for the wrong reasons. (This is why many wineries and tasting rooms out west have started to post signs saying No Limos or Groups Above 6.)

Start conversations with winemakers and/or winery representatives. I am always curious about the back stories of the wines. How are they made? How did the winery get started? How are the vineyards managed? What is the terrior or climate like? I always ask the winemaker how the wine should be served…they all have a different answer! I always like to get firsthand accounts and usually extract some great stories.

At regional wine events, there are usually many regional wineries. A lot of these wines are fermented with local berries and hybrid grapes (vignoles, chardonel, norton, etc). Most of them are of poor quality. (Taste sugary sweet, like diesel fuel, etc.) I am always polite when tasting them, but am usually spitting them out immediately. I always go in with an open mind. Sometimes you do taste something good, but usually for every fifty wines you taste, only one is good. This is how I discover wines from off the beaten path. Some may find it strange, but I taste everything because I want to understand why it is not palatable. Maybe it’s too acidic, sweet, or bitter. It could be disjointed, flabby, flat, and not in balance. These elements need to sing in harmony.

Happy Tasting!

How to Taste & Describe Wine

The following are brief analytic instructions on how I taste wine.  There are also desciptors I like to use on how to descibe the color of wine as well as descriptors to describe the smells and flavors.

(1) SITE Hold the wine against a white backdrop and look at the wine assessing the color and clarity. Swirl the wine to observe the viscosity or “legs” (aka tears) as they form down the side of the glass. Fast, slow, clear, or colorful— legs do not mean anything in regards to the quality of the wine it just helps to determine the weight and body!

(2) SMELL Swirl the wine to release the aromas and smell in small sniffs. (Just like a police dog!) Repeat several times. FEW! Fruit, Earth, Wood! First think of fruit smells, then earthy (floral) smells, then wood (baking spice) smells.

(3) TASTE Take a small taste of the wine letting it coat your tongue. Repeat if necessary. What is the body of the wine—LIGHT, MEDIUM, FULL? FEW! Fruit, Earth, Wood! First think of fruit tastes, then earthy tastes, then wood tastes, if any.


SITE & COLOR SPECTRUM

WHITE WINE: PALE YELLOW-GREEN →YELLOW-STRAW→YELLOW-GOLD→GOLD→YELLOW-BROWN→BROWN
RED WINE: PURPLE→RUBY→RED→GARNET-RUST→BROWN
(I believe this is stolen from Kevin Zraly's great read...)

WINE DESCRIPTORS words & verbs to descibe wine



FRUIT

ORCHARD-APPLE, PEAR, QUINCE

CITRUS-LEMON, LIME, ORANGE, POMELO, GRAPEFRUIT, TANGERINE, CLEMENTINE

STONE-PEACH, APRICOT, NECTARINE

TROPICAL-PINEAPPLE, GUAVA, BANANA, STAR FRUIT, LYCHEE, MANGO, PAPAYA, KIWI, PASSION FRUIT

RED/BERRY-STRAWBERRY, RASPBERRY, BLUEBERRY, BLACKBERRY, GOOSEBERRY, CRANBERRY, POMEGRANATE

BLACK/DARK-PLUM, CHERRY, CURRANT, FIG, CASSIS, DATES



EARTH

HERBS-ROSEMARY, SAGE, THYME, PARSLEY, EUCALYPTUS, CILANTRO, LAVENDER, FENNEL, GREEN PEPPER, OLIVE, ASPARAGUS, TOBACCO, BLACK PEPPER, WHITE PEPPER, CUCUMBER, BLACK TEA, WHITE TEA, LEMONGRASS

FLORAL (FLOWERS)-ORANGE BLOSSOM, VIOLET, ROSE, LILAC, TULIP, HIBISCUS, GRASS, HONEYSUCKLE, BEES NEST, BEES WAX, CHAMOMILE, YEASTY, BREAD DOUGH, BISCUITY

EARTHINESS-MUSHROOM, FOREST FLOOR, CEDAR, PINE, MULCH, CHANTERELLE, MOREL, COMPOST, TRUFFLE, PETROL, DIESEL

ANIMAL-BACON FAT, LEATHER, BARNYARD, SWINE, CAT



WOOD

(OAK INFLUENCE IN WINE)

VANILLA-VANILLA BEAN, VANILLA EXTRACT

NUTS-HAZELNUT, ALMOND, MACADAMIA NUT, COCONUT, WALNUT, PECAN

BAKING SPICE-CINNAMON, NUTMEG, ALLSPICE, CLOVE, ANISE