With all of the events held in New York City related to wine, especially to Italian wine, we sometimes forget to talk about very basic tenets of wine tasting. The first being is that wine enjoyable to you, not to a critic 3000 or 10000 miles away, but to you the consumer of wine.
Once you have that answer, you can then proceed to consider why you like a specific wine or not and what are it’s salient characteristics. Think about what it tastes like, the aromas and flavors it leaves in your mouth and how it pairs with the food you are hopefully eating.
Most professional tasters have a three pronged approach to wine, looking first at the visual aspect of the wine, second at the olfactory aspect or the nose and third the taste of the wine on your palate. Generally then a conclusion is drawn about the wine, is it of good quality, balanced and well integrated. It is then placed in a price category. All of this is usually done on a piece of paper but can also be done orally in conversation when describing a wine.
What else do people do to describe a wine? They try to create analogies to sensations that are common to many people saying for example that Sauvignon blanc smells somewhat like fresh cut grass or the more infamous pipi du chat. Many of these comments lose consumers along the way as they feel that they are not “getting something.”
When tasting a wine therefore the most important thing is to figure out if it suits you or not, if it works well with what you are eating and if you would order it again. This is a very basic level of wine tasting, of course, but it is also the most practical and long lasting.
Next you should think how to describe that wine to a friend in a way that they too can understand. Don’t be put off by esoteric or exotic descriptions. Most wine is meant to be drunk young and tasted with food. In Italy, almost all wine is drunk with food. Drinking wine for its own sack is not an Italian habit unless it is a sparkling wine at the start of a meal.
Italian wines are much higher in acidity than most other wines and this makes them a perfect match for food but a bit harder to have on their own. American’s are generally not used to natural acidity in their wines and are often shocked by their first sips of Italian wine. They are reacting to the acidity which is missing in most American wines.
No matter what you do when you taste wine, remember to try and create a methodology in your head even if you never write a tasting note. It will help you to begin to differentiate between wines.
