Wine can reduce stress, slow the aging process, and even provide heart health when sipped in moderation. You don’t necessarily need to be a wine enthusiast to gather that drinking wine can be beneficial. When it comes to tasting wine, though, understanding wines on a deeper level can be not only a cool party trick but helpful in understanding the construction of what you’re drinking. Next time you stop at a local wine shop for a taste, consider these helpful tips.
Understanding the Look
The way a wine looks can tell you a lot. The color of the wine can sometimes hint at grape type or what flavor you might expect. The viscosity of the wine, or the legs, can tell you whether or not to expect a sweeter wine or not.
Understanding the Smell
The smell helps you to identify what to expect in terms of flavor. There are three levels of smell: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary smells indicate fruity notes and floral notes. If you ever see a description of a wine in your local wine shop, it might tell you to expect peach or apricot. These might be identifiable via smell. Secondary smells include smells from the wine-making practice. Finally, tertiary smells derive from the aging process. Some of these might be those weird terms you see on wine bottles, such as leather or tobacco. All of these affect the taste of the wine.
Understanding the Taste
Tasting the wine is the fun part. When we taste, we get additional smells from the back of our nose. The taste of the wine can be determined by our taste buds: sour, salty, sweet, and bitter. Additionally, the taste can affect whether or not you actually enjoy the wine. Texture can also affect how you understand the taste. Some wines feel more watery than others while some seem to have a thickness to them. All of this can come down to personal preference.
After going through the look, smell, and taste of the wine, you can develop a profile for the wine based on your understanding of it. Going through this process might also help you pick out similar bottles in a wine shop that you might enjoy or not enjoy, based on your previous experiences.
In order to put your understanding of wine to the test, contact Towne Cellars Wines & Liquors Inc. at 631-874-0451. You can also connect them on Facebook for more updates.