One of the basic fundamentals in wine appreciation/WSET is the art and science of proper wine tasting. Once honed, this skill allows a person to evaluate several aspects of wine:
- Condition – One can immediately tell whether the wine is faulty (if it smells like nail polish, band aids, rubber bands, or other indications of wine faults, the wine is not good for consumption)
- Age – Red wines normally show tertiary aromas (leather, wood, etc) as they age. White wines lose a certain amount of lustre (both visually and in the mouth) over time. Certain vintages will exhibit different characteristics versus the same wine with a different vintage (hence the astronomic price of a Château Petrus 1982 versus, say, a Château Petrus 1979).
- Quality – There is a study that says to maintain objectivity (after all, given the fact that each person’s genetic makeup and preferences tend to cloud our judgement when evaluating wines), people should search for the mythical “triangle” when tasting wines:
Red: Tannin, Alcohol, and Flavour
White: Acidity, Alcohol, and Flavour
Essentially, this means if each point in the triangle are equal (high tannin, high alcohol, and high flavour; or low tannin, low alcohol, and low flavour), the wine in question has a higher quality level.
- Grape – Each grape will have its own flavor characteristics (for example, a Sauvignon Blanc will always have notes of gooseberries and freshly cut grass, while a Shiraz will have notes of black peppers).
- Winemaking – A nice illustration would be detecting notes of vanilla spice in a wine that has been aged in French oak (versus smelling coconut from American oak), detecting dairy/toasted almond notes in a white wine that has undergone malolactic fermentation (Chia prefers a restrained version in a Chardonnay, I’ve discovered), or smelling bread from a wine that has gone through secondary fermentation (i.e., sparkling wine).
- Country of Origin – A wine from a warmer climate will exhibit riper, more fruit forward versions as opposed to the same grape from a colder climate (and there’s always a correlation between cold environments and acidity in wine). My romantic side will always say that a wine will always smell just like the country it came from (eucalyptus notes from Australian wines, an element of basil and tomatoes from Italian wines, and this very specific smell which I can’t put my finger on whenever I taste Chilean wines on a blind*).
That said, how does one properly taste wine? I often subscribe to the “5 S” method, which our friends from Grafik Giraffe have kindly illustrated for us:
IRL, how does this apply?
One of the biggest challenges I’ve had in recent memory is to find Chia’s “wine”. She’s had beautiful memories of her days in Fontainebleau sipping Chablis, and it’s been difficult to find one with the same quality, accessibility, and price as, well, the ones she got from their neighbourhood Monoprix.
After several tries, we managed to find her a Veramonte Chardonnay 2014 at a reasonable price from Wine Depot. After making me taste it (with that wide-eyed “Eureka!” look on her face), I finally figured out that it was a question of:
- Finding a cold climate (Casablanca in Chile and Chablis are cold wine producing regions) Chardonnay, which was evident from the acidity of the wine (also, only Chardonnay is allowed to be grown in Chablis)
- Making sure that the wine has undergone controlled levels of malolactic fermentation (which is the legally allowed degree in Chablis; and, as I confirmed later on in technical sheets, Veramonte Chardonnay has undergone 50% malolactic fermentation), which was evident from the creaminess and almond flavours of the wine
Other applications include food and wine pairing (as a strange occupational hazard, I get assigned to choose wine for every single dinner I’ve gone to with friends and family), and generally finding the most pleasurable gastronomic and oenological experience for myself, family, and friends (admittedly, I’ve had to send back a couple of bottles of wine in my life which I’ve deemed unfit for service during some dinners).
With that in mind, here’s to finding “your” wine. Cheers!