Bacchus Wines :: Winemaking in Southern Ontario

The Art of Wine Tasting

USING YOUR SENSES

Wine tasting is rather like choosing a spouse: you start with a negative attitude. What's wrong with it? Is the colour murky or dull? Does it smell like a locker-room after a heavy workout? Does it taste like salad dressing? Once you have established that there are no negatives then you can begin to analyze the wine for its good qualities.

Wine appeals to all five of our senses: sight, smell, taste, touch and even hearing. We are enchanted by the sound of a popping cork and the bursting of sparkling wine bubbles. Next comes sight, the way the wine looks in the glass, its colour and transparency or opaqueness. Then comes the smell as we lift the glass to our lips. Finally, the taste of the wine and the feel of its body or weight on our palates. For assessment purposes we are really looking at sight, smell and taste, in that order.

SIGHT

Hold the glass up to the light. (Natural daylight is best. Neon can give a bluish tint and coloured walls can alter the shade.) What we are looking for is clarity and colour. All wines should be bright and clean, free of particles or sediment. Mark down hazy or cloudy wines.

White wines have a range of colours from water white to deep golden depending on sugar content and maturity. Red wines range from dense purple to pale cherry depending on grape variety and age. (Incidentally, white wines gain colour with age, as opposed to reds, which lose colour and fade.)

Older reds will exhibit gradations of colour from the "eye" of the wine to the rim. Against a white background, tilt the glass slightly and see how the wine changes colour. The wine may be deep ruby at its centre, but where its rim touches the glass it may be brick, orange, mahogany or even water white. Diminishing density of hue is a sign of age. A red wine that holds its colour to the edge is a young wine. A browning edge may suggest that the wine is too old or oxidized.

Now swirl the wine in the glass and let it settle. Hold the glass up to the light and look for the transparent wetness left on the sides of the glass. This will fall back to the surface in "tears" or "legs" (the Germans call them "church windows"). This effect can tell you the alcoholic strength of the wine. The thicker the "legs" and the slower moving down the glass, the higher the alcohol.

SMELL

Your nose will tell you seventy-five percent of what you want to know about a wine. Our noses are much more sensitive than our palates. We can smell as little as 400 molecules of a substance but we can taste it only if we have at least 25,000 molecules.

A healthy person can distinguish among some 5,000 smells, but our palates only register four taste sensations: sweet, salt, sour and bitter. These basic tastes are fanned out into thousands of nuances at the top of the nose so if we have a cold we will find it difficult to smell and taste. In terms of wine, sweet = grape sugar, sour = acidity, salt = saltiness (rare) and bitter = tannin.

To get the most concentrated smell of the wine first swirl the wine in the glass. This action creates friction and causes the wine's esters to evaporate. The esters carry the wine's aromas. Sniff the glass in short, sharp little in-takes of air. First look for faults. Are there any off odours (the smell of musty barrels or the vinegary scent of oxidation, for example)?

Once you have established that the bouquet is clean, assess its quality. Is it concentrated or light? Does it smell of fresh fruit or berries, dried fruit, flowers, nuts, spices, herbs, vegetation? Does it have an overlying vanilla or cedar scent from oak barrels? Does it show age and maturity with a smell of leather, coffee beans, truffles or chocolate?

Store the memory of the smell so that you can identify it when you experience it again. Remember, the nose is like a muscle: the more you use it, the more refined it will become. We tend to take our sense of smell for granted. Odours are either pleasant or unpleasant. We don't tend to break them down and analyze them. Most people find it difficult to describe what they smell in a wine, but when they hear a description that approximates their own experience they will agree.

Recognizing Wine's Components

Your nose will help you detect the main components of wine.

Acidity: A fresh, citrus-like smell suggests high acid. If you find yourself salivating after smelling a wine's bouquet you are reacting to the presence of acid.

Fruit: A sweet berry or fruit smell. The warmer the growing region the more tropical the fruit will be in character. For whites: pineapple, mango, melon and fig. The more northerly are apples, pears, quince and gooseberry. For reds from warm climates: black currant, blackberry, plum; from cool growing regions: cherry, pomegranate, raspberry, strawberry.

Alcohol: The presence of alcohol heightens our perception of sugar. While we cannot actually smell alcohol we are aware of its presence as a "hot" sensation in the nose (and as it goes down the throat).

Tannin: This naturally occurring compound is experienced as an astringent taste and feel on the back of the palate and cheeks. You can perceive tannin in the bouquet of a red wine when it is young and particularly heavy. It will come across as a bitter, woody, inky smell.

Oak: Wines that have been barrel-aged will extract flavours and tannins from the oak. New French oak imparts a discernible vanilla quality to the wine. American oak, favoured in Rioja, gives the wine a coconut quality. Oak will also add a spicy character to the wine reminiscent of cloves or cinnamon.

TASTE

There is not one taste but three: the initial taste as the wine hits your palate, the secondary taste when the wine warms up in the mouth and the aftertaste once you have swallowed it. Let the wine wash over the entire palate. The first impression will be of the sweetness in the wine because of the position of the sugar-sensing taste buds. The sensation of sweetness is short and intense. Acidity is slower to reveal itself, but lasts much longer.

The Tongue

Different areas of the tongue are more sensitive to one taste sensation than another. The sensation of sweetness, for instance, is experienced at the tip of the tongue. A sugar lump placed at the back of the tongue will take a comparatively long time to register as sweet.

Sugar: the tip of the tongue
Salt: the tip and upper front sides
Acidity: the middle sides and underside (and cheeks)
Bitterness: back of the tongue (and cheeks)

Note the presence of fruit, acidity, alcohol and tannin (in red wines, that dry aftertaste on the sides of the cheeks and back of the mouth). The longer the aftertaste lingers, the better the wine.

Check the harmony of the wine; all the elements should be in balance. A wine is made up of fruit (sugar), acid, alcohol and tannin or oak. Think of these as legs of a chair. If one of the legs is shorter than the others, the chair will be unbalanced. If one element, say, the acidity or the smell of oak, predominates, then the wine is not harmonious.

(From: http://www.acsp.info/ontario/wine_voc.html)

STORAGE

Temperature is the most important factor and the factor that should be sought after above all others. The optimum temperature is 50 to 55F (10-12C).
However, and this point is extremely important, any constant temperature within 40-65F (5-18C) will do.
Keep in mind that white wines are affected far more by temperature problems than red wines.
Moderate humidity is important so as to keep the corks in good resilient condition and thereby preventing them from shrinking. A relative humidity of 50-80% is the acceptable range, but about 70% is recommended. Excessive humidity will not harm the wine but will cause the labels and any other paper products like cardboard boxes you have in the cellar to rot.
Insufficient humidity may cause the corks to dry out, lose their elasticity and thereby allow air to get into the bottle.
Light will prematurely age a bottle of wine. Naturally, clear bottles are most susceptible to this problem, but ultraviolet light will penetrate even dark colored glass.
Ultraviolet light may give a wine unpleasant aromas and ruin it. Extra care should be given to sparkling wines as they are more sensitive to light than other wines. It should be noted too, that incandescent or sodium vapor lights are better for a cellar that fluorescent lighting
Wines should be stored in such a way that you don't have to move them around to get at a particular bottle. Once a wine is laid down, it should stay there until it is opened.
The space should be free from smells and debris. Extraneous smells can enter through the cork and contaminate the wine
Debris that could be a home to insects that might infect the corks, untreated wood, and food should be removed. Never store fruits, vegetables, cheeses or any other food that is capable of fermenting in the same room with your wine.
Table wine is stored horizontally so that the wine stays in contact with the cork.
If bottles are stored with the labels up, it will be easier to see the deposit of sediment that forms on the opposite side of the bottle when it comes time to open it.

SERVING

In general, white wines are served cooler than red wines
These serving temperatures should be used as guidelines. 65F / 18C would be the equivalent of leaving the wine out at room temperature for about 4 hours. 39F / 4C can be achieved by leaving the bottle in the refrigerator for about 4 hours.

Wine	Serving Temperature
Australian Shiraz, California Cabernet Sauvignon, Rhône Wines, Vintage Port	65F / 18C
Bordeaux, Château Neuf-du-Pape, Ribera del Duero, South African Pinotage and Catalonian, Chilean, and Australian Cabernet	63F / 17C
Red Côte d'Or Burgundy, southern French Reds, southern Italian reds, Rioja, Toro, Australian and California Pinot Noir, Tawny and Ruby Ports	61F / 16C
Côte Chalonnaise, Douro red table wines, young Zinfandel, Oregon Pinot Noir, New Zealand Cabernet and Pinot Noir, Oloroso and Cream sherries, Bual and Malmsey Madera	50F / 15C
Chignon, Bourgueil, northern Italian and Washington State Cabernet Sauvignon, Valpolicella, young Chianti	57F / 14C
Young Beaujolais, red Sancerre, Bardolino, Lago di Caldara, young Spanish and Portuguese reds, vin de pays	54 - 55F 12 - 13C
California and Australian Chardonnay, Sauternes, top white Côte d'Or Burgundy, sweet German Wines, Rhine and Mosel Kabinett and Spätlese, Tokay, Australian liqueur Muscat, Italian oaked Chardonnay, oaked white Rioja, Fino and Amontillado Sherries, sercial Madeira, white Port	50F / 10C
Good white Pessac-Léognan and Graves, north-eastern Italian whites, Washington State Chardonnay, Chilean Chardonnay, Australian Semillon, New Zealand Chardonnay	48F / 9C
Alsace, Chablis, Côte Chalonnaise and mâconnais whites, dry German wines, Franken wines, Austrian Riesling, English wines, Australian Riesling, Cabernet and Grenache rosé	46F / 8C
Good Champagne and Sparkling wine, Sancerre, new York State, Chilean and New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc	45F / 7C
White Bordeaux, Muscadet, Anjou, other Sauvignons, Asti, unoaked white Rioja	43F / 6C
Qba German wines, Soave, young Spanish and Portuguese whites, Vinho Verde, Swiss Chasselas, Austrian Grüner Veltliner, cheap rosé	41F / 5C
Cheap sparkling wines	36 - 39F 2 - 4C