In past posts, I have discussed the Visual Inspection and Aroma parts of wine tasting, but now its time to actually taste the wine. . .
The
Palate is a fancy word used to describe how a wine tastes, and can be broken down into several different characteristics:
- flavor
- body
- sweetness
- acidity
- tannins
- finish
To start take a small sip, as though you are drinking it through a straw. You don't have to slurp or gargle it, but do hold it in your mouth for a few seconds. The key is to allow the wine to circulate around your mouth, exposing as many taste buds as possible to the
flavors. You will want to try to confirm the
flavors that you identified in the aroma, but also look for new
flavors. You will also want to consider how full the wine makes your mouth feel or the weight of the wine. This characteristic is called the
body and is sort of like comparing skim milk to whole milk.
Beyond flavors and body, you want to determine if the wine is
dry or
sweet. This is a statement about the amount of residual sugar in the wine, so you don't want to confuse fruity with sweet. A dry wine can have fruit flavors (as can a sweet wine). The difference is dry wine will actually dry out your mouth and not have any of the syrupy-ness of sweet wines.
After determining
sweetness, the next two characteristics to consider are
acidity and
tannins. The
acidity of a wine gives it a crispness and creates a mouth-watering sensation. The
tannins are bitter and produce a drying sensation in your mouth (the opposite of effect from the
acidity).
Tannins are usually only found in red wine, because they come from the grape skins (and white wine is white because the grape skins are removed for fermentation).
And finally, the
finish (sometimes also called the
length). This is used to describe how long the taste/sensations lasts in your mouth after you've swallowed the wine. The
finish is usually described as Short (<3 seconds), Medium (4-5 seconds), Long (5-7 seconds), or Very Long (>8 seconds).
