What are you doing this weekend? Get your friends together and throw a wine-tasting party! Here are some easy tips to get started.
1. Pick a theme: As host, you can either provide all the wine or ask everyone to bring a bottle and set a price limit.
- Reds from around: Take a vinous vacation with wines from many countries. Bottles can include Malbec from Argentina, Carmenere from Chile, Cabernet from Australia and Grenache from Spain.
- Chardonnay smackdown See how this famous grape expresses itself with a variety of styles from places such as California’s Russian River Valley and Napa Valley, Oregon’s Willamette Valley and France’s Burgundy region.
- Exotic whites Sample a lineup of aromatic and esoteric beauties to widen your wine horizons.
2. Set up the party: When people arrive the host should bag the bottles or cover with foil and number them. This is called blind tasting and it helps you focus on the wine without any preconceived ideas of place, price or producer.
- Make tasting sheets for each wine. Note the color, aromas, flavors, and overall impression of each unidentified bottle of wine. After the bag or foil is removed, record the name of the producer, the type of wine, the country and region it comes from, the year it was made, the cost of a bottle, and the foods you think it would go well with.
- Depending on how many glasses you have for everyone, you may have to have guests use a dump bucket in between sips. Set out a pitcher or flower vase to use.
- Make sure there’s ample water! My motto is a glass of water for every glass of wine. (You’ll thank me in the morning.)
- Put out some food such as a cheese tray, olives, nuts, crackers and sliced bread and start smelling, swirling, tasting and talking.
How to taste wine like a pro
As a professional wine taster I’m often asked how I can possibly spit out all that delicious wine. Spitting allows you to get the impression of the wine without the alcohol, which is a necessity since I regularly taste between 50 to100 wines per week.
Spitting or swallowing is actually the last part of the tasting process, which begins when you pick up the glass. Here are my four S’s of wine tasting that will get you sipping like a pro:
See: Look at the color and clarity of a wine, preferably holding the glass over a white piece of paper or tablecloth. Color will give you indications of the grape variety and also tell you things about how the wine is made and its age. For example, a wine that has been in oak barrels – as many Chardonnays are – will be more gold in color than whites aged in steel tanks. An older white wine will look darker than a younger white wine.
Swirl: Do you know why we swirl? Technically to release the aromas and fruity esters of the wine, but all we’re really doing is making the wine comfortable in the glass. Begin swirling by making small circles with the glass on the table. Make sure your glass isn’t too full or you’ll rank as the sloppy swirler of the group.
Smell: Swirling stirs the wine up and allows it to coat the sides of the glass so you can smell the wine better. Smelling a wine is the most important part of wine tasting because you can detect thousands of smells but only a handful of tastes. Take a good long sniff and ask yourself what you smell – fruits, veggies, flowers, butter, spices, herbs? Let your mind go wild – there’s no wrong answer.
Sip: Take a sip and swish it around in your mouth. This coats your mouth with the wine, much like swirling does in the glass, and allows you to assess the wine better. Again, ask yourself questions about the aromas and flavors, then think about the way the wine feels and tastes in your mouth:
- Is it light, medium, or full-bodied? (Higher-alcohol wines generally have a fuller body and heavier impression in your mouth than light to medium-bodied lower-alcohol wines.)
- Does it feel smooth or taste tart?
- Do you taste sweetness?
- Is there a pleasant, lingering aftertaste (called the finish)?
Most importantly, do you like the wine? If you can’t figure it out, you may need another sip … then another, then another … Cheers!
Leslie Sbrocco is the author of "The Simple & Savvy Wine Guide" and founder of ThirstyGirl.com.