Carpe Wine: Going back to the basics of wine tasting

Have you ever wondered how people come up with tasting notes on the back of a wine bottle? The ones that read something like, “Full-bodied with aromas of green peppercorn, graphite, dark chocolate and black cherry along with hints of vanilla and spice on the finish.” It’s not nonsense but rather a combination of science and art — something we can all learn with a little basic wine 101. 

This month I attended multiple seminars and events during Taste of Vail, including a session on blind tasting. Given I’m going through another wine certification program I wanted to go to test myself. I also love blind tasting since it strips away perception about regions and varietals you may have. You may think you don’t like wine from Colorado only to discover cabernet franc from Palisade is amazing.

There were a ton of great questions during the session so I thought it would be good to go back to the basics of wine tasting and address a few common questions.  

Let’s begin with the Systematic Approach to Tasting Wine (SAT), from the Wine & Spirit Education Trust, which I use in wine judging and am burning into my brain for this next wine certification. The SAT is designed to help you break down describing a wine and make reasonable conclusions based on the descriptors of the wines appearance, nose and palate. It’s complicated but let’s try to keep it simple. 

Step One: Appearance

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You can tell a lot about a wine by its color. From the grape variety, its age, the type of climate it was grown in, and its body.

• Wines grown in a cooler climate are typically lighter in color and body.
• Wines richer in color tend to be more full-bodied as they will have more tannins from the grape skins.
• Different grape varieties have more or less pigment (aka color) in the grape skins. Thus, wines from thin-skinned grapes like gamay and pinot noir are lighter in color than those produced with thicker skinned grapes like syrah and zinfandel.
• If a white wine like chardonnay was aged in oak it will be more golden in color, and have good body. (You can’t really see differences in terms of color for red wines aged in oak.)
• Red wines can range from purple, ruby, garnet, tawny and brown. Purple usually indicates a young wine. As wine ages, it loses its pigment, thus changing its color; a garnet wine indicates age. Tawny and brown are usually only seen in very old wines or those deliberately exposed to oxygen.

Tip: Tilt your glass to a 45-degree angle over a white cloth or piece of paper. View the wine directly from above. What do you see? Is there a densely colored core at the center? Is the edge, or rim translucent or clear? What is the main color you see?

Step Two: Nose

What do you smell in your glass? Can you identify specific flowers, fruits (ripe/ baked/stewed), herbs, spices, toast, vanilla or tobacco? 

I like to begin by smelling the wine, THEN swirling it to gently release its aromas. Hold the glass at a 45-degree angle and place your nose near the bottom rim. Take a deep, slow inhale while gradually moving the glass so your nose travels to the top of the rim. Try to identify five descriptors through this process.

Tip: The more you smell and taste different things the better you get at identifying aromas. Walk through the grocery store and farmers market and smell the different fruits and vegetables, open up your spice rack and smell the difference between cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and all spice.

Step Three: Palate
How does the wine taste? The aromas you picked up in step two should transfer over to your palate but those awesome little taste buds in your mouth will help you identify a few more flavors. Everyone has different levels of sensitivities to a wine’s structural components — sugar, acidity, tannins and alcohol. The more you are aware of how to identify these the better you get at understanding what is in your glass.

How do you determine the acidity?

I call this the “kick you get in the back of your mouth”. To measure the “kick” take a sip of wine, give it a little swish in your mouth before swallowing (or spitting) and see how long your mouth waters afterwards. My benchmark is about three seconds for higher acid wines, everyone’s benchmark will be different but the point is to see how long your mouth waters after your sip. Wines with higher acidity are typically made from grapes grown in cooler climates the slower ripening process retains much of the grape’s natural acidity.

What are tannins?

Have you ever eaten a grape with seeds inside? That bitterness and bone-dry sensation in your mouth afterward was thanks to the tannins. Tannins are found in grape seeds, skins and stems, along with milder tannins found in oak aging barrels. Red wines are higher in tannins than white wines since red grapes have more pigmentation in their skins that are extracted during the winemaking process.

What does it mean for a wine to be full-bodied verses light-bodied?

The short answer is how it feels in your mouth — fuller or lighter. The levels of sugar, tannins and alcohol content contribute to your answer. The higher of each, the fuller the wine will feel in your mouth. For instance, wines with higher tannins have added layers and complexity, creating a full-bodied wine.

Keep practicing. This tasting method will help you become a better taster by slowing you down and helping you decipher the nuances in your glass.

Elaine Schoch is an award-winning travel writer and wine judge, certified by the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) Level 2, and a certified American Wine Expert. She is also the editor at Carpe Travel, a content site focused on wine travel. You can follow her wine 101 and sipping adventures on Carpe Travel or Instagram.