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Wine tasting
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| Wine deserves our utmost respect because its journey from the vine to our table is a long one. First the grapes must be carefully cultivated, and then there is the complex process of vinification, followed from start to finish by the enologist. The infinite subtleties in every bottle of wine are the fruit of painstaking work and in order to appreciate them you need not just to be a wine lover, but to be reasonably competent on the subject. |
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When dealing with wine standard adjectives are not enough: to describe the nose and bouquet of a wine to a friend, as well as the emotions a great wine conveys, we really need an entirely specialist vocabulary. The simple definitions of "good" or "bad" are inadequate: we need to expand our normal skills of analysis and find a common code with which to communicate the visual, olfactory and gustatory sensations that the wine in our glass is capable of triggering.
Tasting is a technique that must be learned and at the beginning one must be humble enough to become used to questioning one's own body, rediscovering natural talents which with frenzied everyday lifestyles have simply been allowed to become dormant. During this delicate operation, the person tasting the wine attempts to carry out as objective an evaluation as possible. So it comes as no surprise to learn that a sommelier will never dismiss a wine with a tight-lipped "it is good" but, before giving an opinion, will base his choice on a ritual perfected by sector professionals which is based on three distinct steps:
Visual assessment. This starts as soon as the wine is poured into the glass. After observing any effervescence, the sommelier raises the glass to eye level and against the light evaluates the clarity of the wine in the glass. Sommeliers have created a scale of clarity that ranges from "veiled" to "brilliant".
The same goes for the color, which is divided into three main categories: yellow, pink and red. Thanks to yet further classification a red wine, for example, may be purplish, ruby, garnet or orange-red. These are subtle nuances that one must learn to recognize, but which allow us to tell at a mere glace whether we are dealing with a young wine (bold, bright red), a special reserve that has been aged considerably (a lovely deep shade of garnet) or a passito (typically amber yellow in color).
The next step consists in swirling the wine slowly in the glass and observing the "legs" that form on the sides, which, for example, are typical of an Amarone della Valpolicella (a strong, full-flavoured wine made from air-dried grapes from Italy's Valpolicella district), high in alcohol content, or of a Moscato di Pantelleria (a wine made from Moscato grapes grown in Pantelleria, an island off the south-west coast of Sicily)1, and an unlikely occurrence when tasting a Pinot blanc.
Olfactory assessment This is a more complex task because a whole spectrum of fragrances is involved, ranging from flowery and fruity to aromas of dried fruit, preserves, aromatic herbs, spices, animals ... and the skill of the wine taster lies in bringing the glass to nose level and trying to put into words the sensations conveyed to his/her olfactory centre.
At this point, we could for example find ourselves before a crystal clear wine of a ruby red color, with consistent fluidity, whose nose evokes fruits of the forest as well as liquorice.
Palate assessment. By the time we reach the tasting stage, once the first two steps have been carried out correctly, we already have some very clear ideas which ought to be confirmed by the gustatory assessment, during which we can perfect and add more details to our evaluation. Indeed, wine can transmit sensations of warmth, dryness, roughness, and consistency to varying degrees. These characteristics will influence our choice of wine with a particular dish and at the same time improve our knowledge of the food in question.
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To taste a wine properly all you need is an ordinary clear glass. Naturally it is best to avoid wearing any perfume so that our nose (and that of fellow tasters nearby) is not confused by "alien" scents. There is however one tool that is synonymous with the sommelier: a tastevin, a kind of shallow cup with a handle complete with finger-rest. Inside it has a series of "dimples" for the visual assessment of red wines and a series of raised "indentations" for whites.
But, pomp and circumstance aside, the tastevin is only used for a rapid palate assessment of wine, while more serious analysis calls for the classic "egg-shaped" glass, which holds the aromas for longer.
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While for a professional sommelier organoleptic analysis, that is to say the evaluation of a wine in terms of its flavour, smell and color, is the basis of his work, nobody would dream of demanding such meticulousness of anyone opening a bottle of wine at home.
However, if you are the host, it is important before offering your guests a glass of wine or indeed before pouring one for yourself, that you take a second to look at the color and clarity, savour the fragrances released from the glass and taste the wine you have just poured, preparing to form an objective opinion of it.
It goes without saying that serving temperature is fundamental in order not to "kill" the wine you are about to offer and disappoint your guests. Serving a white wine straight from the fridge (2-3°C) means you lose the majority of its olfactory and gustatory characteristics, and it is equally important not to exaggerate in the opposite direction, serving a red wine that has been left exposed to summer sunlight at approximately 25-28°C.
Simply reading the label on the bottle gives us excellent indications of how to get the best from that wine, without ever overlooking certain simple golden rules:
the serving temperature for spumante is about 8°C, whites and rosés 10-12°C, and reds 14-18°C;
before opening any bottle, let it rest a couple of hours, especially if it is been bumped about on the journey from the wine shop to the car to your home;
if serving an aged red wine it should be allowed to breathe before serving, so open it at least an hour beforehand and transfer it into a decanter, if possible, to allow it to breathe more and so that any deposits have time to settle;
if we intend to serve more than one wine with a meal, whites are generally served before reds, and light wines before more robust ones;
the choice of glass has nothing to do with being pretentious since the right glass is the natural complement to a given wine: therefore always set the table with two glasses (water and wine) or a minimum of three if both red and white wines are to be served;
never hesitate to change the bottle if having uncorked it, smelled the cork and tasted the wine, you feel there is something wrong with it
do not insist teetotal diners taste the wine and do not badger them by asking the reason for such a choice.
Apart from these few rules, all you need to do is stimulate your curiosity by visiting wine bars or other places in your area where good wine is served; the wine will do the rest, allowing even novices to get to know it, as long as it is given due attention and respect.
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