THE BEST INFORMATION FOR DEMANDING PALATES

" Tasting wine is to try attention a product whose quality we want to appreciate ; it is submitting to our senses and I know looking for different effects and qualities , in order to express them ; The tasting is studying, describe, define , judge and classify"

Peynaud

Also, and in a few words, we may say that winetasting is describing the intimacy of a wine.Winetasting basically consists in taking the necessary time to think about what we are drinking. If you focus all your attention in the wine by looking at it, smelling it and tasting it, you will have the possibility of experimenting all its shades.

The most logical form of approaching a wine is:

• Through your sight.
• Through your smell.
• Through your taste.

The most difficult part of appreciating a wine is describing verbally the sensations perceived in the tasting with detail and accuracy. This aim is reached by means of a mechanism that demands, first of all, to educate the senses, to memorize the sensations perceived and finally a vocabulary that may allow the translation of those impressions into probable values. And in this situation it is important to state that winetasting is an extremely subjective operation and that it is genetically proved that there are not two people that may perceive the same wine in an identical manner. If we add individual preferences to this factor, we will surely disagree with some descriptions.

How would you explain to somebody who has never tasted an orange what an orange tastes like, what sensation it produces in the mouth, what it smells of? That is why winetasting is a personal exercise. Think of the wines you like most and try to express why you prefer them. Is it sweet or dry? Does it cause a sensation of softness or toughness in your mouth? Compare these sensations with products you may recognize and identify and describe them with your own language.

It is quite different if we talk about professional winetasting, in which the use of typical terminology is essential so that the terms used have the same meaning for everybody.

Some advice

• If you are going to taste wine, you should start with the white, continue with the rosé and finally taste the red; and within a same group, first the dry and then the sweet; the lightest before the most structured ones.
• Make sure the wine is at the right temperature.
• Use a fine and transparent (non-carved) crystal glass.
• Prefer a place with good light and air.
• Do not wear strong perfumes.
• Fill the glass to only one third of its capacity (ideal measurement for winetasting).