You don't have to be a serious or highly qualified sommelier to enjoy the art of wine tasting. It can be a great pass time to get enjoyment from whilst being educational at the same time. You can meet new friends at organised classes, or go along with friends and learn something new together.
Wine tasting is as old as the making of wine itself and has been taken to great heights in terms of qualified wine tasters being able to distinguish subtle changes in different vintages even from within the same vineyard. Many professional wine tasters have insured their taste buds for many thousand pounds.
However, for the ordinary person wanting to get more out of their wine experience, an organised group is the best way to start. Attending classes will begin to familiarise you with the terminology and simple analysis used by the experts.
Often at the end of a fixed-term course on wine tasting, students will hold a blind tasting to test their knowledge and see how well they can identify specific wines. Students are taken through all the different stages of being able to recognize a well-crafted wine starting with how the wine looks when first poured into the glass and its general appearance.
While the wine is still in the glass and before tasting it; wine tasters use their sense of smell to savour the aromas of the wine and begin the mind actual tasting experience. The nose is capable of a much wider array of stimuli than the tongue and can pick up on any fruity or woody notes, herbal or floral scents. The usual terminology for the smells that come from the wine are aroma or bouquet.
Before tasting the wine it is advisable to have the right kind of wine glass to allow the full flavour of the wine to be experienced. Glasses which are larger at the base and quite narrow at the top are thought to be ideal. Wide topped glasses are the least ideal. Having your tasting wine at the correct temperature is critical to ensuring that what you taste is going to be at its optimum.
Light bodied red wines such as a Shiraz Grenache should be kept at 10-12 deg C. White wines such as Chenin Blanc should be kept at 6-10 deg C and rose wine such as a Pinotage should be kept at 10-12 deg C. Once you have learnt the basics then you can enjoy years of fine tuning your taste buds and learning more as you go along.
Make sure you have a range of wines available for tasting such as a South Africa red wine, Californian white wine or a New Zealand rose.
Wine tasting is as old as the making of wine itself and has been taken to great heights in terms of qualified wine tasters being able to distinguish subtle changes in different vintages even from within the same vineyard. Many professional wine tasters have insured their taste buds for many thousand pounds.
However, for the ordinary person wanting to get more out of their wine experience, an organised group is the best way to start. Attending classes will begin to familiarise you with the terminology and simple analysis used by the experts.
Often at the end of a fixed-term course on wine tasting, students will hold a blind tasting to test their knowledge and see how well they can identify specific wines. Students are taken through all the different stages of being able to recognize a well-crafted wine starting with how the wine looks when first poured into the glass and its general appearance.
While the wine is still in the glass and before tasting it; wine tasters use their sense of smell to savour the aromas of the wine and begin the mind actual tasting experience. The nose is capable of a much wider array of stimuli than the tongue and can pick up on any fruity or woody notes, herbal or floral scents. The usual terminology for the smells that come from the wine are aroma or bouquet.
Before tasting the wine it is advisable to have the right kind of wine glass to allow the full flavour of the wine to be experienced. Glasses which are larger at the base and quite narrow at the top are thought to be ideal. Wide topped glasses are the least ideal. Having your tasting wine at the correct temperature is critical to ensuring that what you taste is going to be at its optimum.
Light bodied red wines such as a Shiraz Grenache should be kept at 10-12 deg C. White wines such as Chenin Blanc should be kept at 6-10 deg C and rose wine such as a Pinotage should be kept at 10-12 deg C. Once you have learnt the basics then you can enjoy years of fine tuning your taste buds and learning more as you go along.
Make sure you have a range of wines available for tasting such as a South Africa red wine, Californian white wine or a New Zealand rose.
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