How to taste

An individual adventure

We know today that how a person feels about a wine depends on their own personal perception. Each person’s perception depends entirely on their own history and culture and is not directly related to the actual sensory characteristics of the wine: it is our memories that confer hedonistic characteristics on wine.

That being the case, even though culture defines the standards and quality criteria for each product, each person is free to like or not like any given wine!

An adventure to share

To be able to enrich you olfactory (smell) and gustatory (taste) universe, it’s really important to make the most of other people’s comments and to share your own. This fills out your knowledge of wine making each tasting richer and more interesting than the last.

No-one can ever – thanks be! – smell or taste anything for you, so here are a few pointers to get you going: the eye for the robe, the nose for the bouquet, the palate for the flavours.

The eye for the robe

With your glass on the table, you can evaluate the wine’s robe :

its exact colour…

For white wine, the nuances go from pale yellow to golden yellow and even amber.

Rosés go through a palate of grey to orangy.

For reds the spectrum is wide, from purplish to the orangy nuances that are called tile through different shades of ruby.
its intensity (pale, strong, deep)
its brightness (lively, forthright, dull) and its limpidity (crystalline, transparent, cloudy, milky etc... with or without a deposit).

Hold you glass by the stem and gently tilt it towards the light to be able to observe the nuances in the robe. Then gently swirl the wine in the glass for the “legs” or “tears” to appear, these thin lines that cling to the glass will give you an idea of the consistence of the wine; whether it tends more towards the fatty and concentrated or the fluid and light.

"Its colour is a wines face, there you can read its age and character."

The nose for the bouquet

Your nose is indispensable when it comes to tasting!

Plunge your nose into your glass, breathe in deeply through your nostrils, take a little air, then repeat.

You will detect a variety of scents that may be subtle, powerful, fresh and or pleasant etc.

All these aromas may bring to mind things like flowers, a fruit pudding, freshly baked brioche, spices in a dinner you enjoyed with friends or a basket of mushrooms among many things that form a spontaneous association with your memories linked to places, people and emotions.

Now its time to taste the wine!

The palate for the flavours

What could be more enjoyable than to serve yourself a glass of wine and to savour each sip?

Is your wine fleshy, suave, heady, heavy, full-bodied, light or slightly sparkling? To make the very most of your wine, use your tongue to roll it round the whole surface of your mouth.

Once your have swallowed your wine you’re almost done; now you’ll be able to say if the wine is long or short in the mouth, meaning that its flavours and aromas fade quickly or fill out over time.

"You don’t talk about taste, you taste."

Remember that it is your own impressions that take precedence over everything else!

Les Vins du Beaujolais hope you have great tastings...