How To Taste Wine: Choosing Your Wine Glass, And The 5 S's of Wine Tasting

Wine can be a very intimidating thing for many people. Whereas beer feels simple—if you like IPAs, you’ll probably like a new IPA—but with wine there are thousands of varieties and types of wine. Even once you choose a bottle to buy and drink, there is so much culture and technique that people associate with wine, that it can seem too intimidating. Sadly, this results in many people opting for beer or liquor instead.

But drinking wine doesn’t have to be hard or complicated. Today, we are going to lay out the basics of wine tasting.

First off, you can drink however you want! There is absolutely no need to do anything other than pop that top and drink! Straight out of the bottle if you want. It will still be enjoyable and get you tipsy!

But as with anything—-think music, art, books or beer—you can add to the inherent joy of drinking wine by learning more about it. Wine has many layers, and the more you know, the more you will enjoy wine. Just as a music aficionado begins to appreciate a song more when they learn to distinguish between the different instruments being used and the skills that go into that art, so it is with learning about the many types of wine, and how each type and flavor is created.

You could spend a lifetime learning all the aspects of wine and never get bored. But today, we will address the act of drinking wine.

How should I store wine before drinking?

Most wines are shelf-stable, meaning they will last at room temperature for years. Ideal storage temperature is cool (fridge temperature up to 59F) but up to 75F is acceptable. Perhaps the most important thing is to keep the temperature stable. A closet in a temperature-controlled room (whatever temperature you have your air conditioner set at is probably fine) is a common-place location that will work great.

What temperature should I serve wine at?

White wines and roses are best served cold (45F ideally, 35-55F great, room temperature is okay). This is because when wines are colder, they tend to be more refreshing, especially on a hot day! Colder temperatures can also accentuate the straigthforward fruity flavors in a wine. This is also true for smoother, sweeter, or fruitier red wines. Just beware: if you serve dark red wines cold, it can enhance the bitter or astringent notes in the wine.

Red wines, especially more tannic, dark and heavy red wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon or Syrah, are best served cool (55F ideally, 45-65F okay, above 75F is a big no-no). These “room temperature” serving temperatures create the best aromatic expression from the wine and keeps them tasting fresh but not bitter. If you serve them too cold, they will be more refreshing on a hot day but might be a bit bitter and lacking in complex aromas. If they are too hot, they will taste harsh, alcoholic and vinegary because the high temperatures will increase the volatility of the alcohol and vinegar. At the perfect temperature—55F-65F in most cases—red wine will be aromatic but not harsh, refreshing but smooth, and ideal in every way!

Should I use a different wine glass for each wine?

The reason some people use a different glass for each wine is to keep each wine’s flavor totally distinct. This is ideal, but not required. Just make sure to finish each wine before you pour the next into the glass (unless you feel like creating your own blend!).

Do I have to use a wine glass?

No, you do not have to use a wine glass when drinking wine. The reason for wine glasses is that they allow you to swirl and smell the wines to their maximum potential (that’s why wine glasses are bowl shaped and have a narrower opening, to swirl & focus the flavors). But if you’re not that concerned about any of that, you can certainly enjoy our wine out of a mason jar (hipster), coffee mug (boring meetings), or straight from the bottle (purse wine). Enjoy!

Okay: now we are ready to drink the wine! Finally! Pour that wine into whatever vessel you have decided to drink out of, and we’ll dive into the “5 S’s of Wine Tasting.”

Wine Tasting Secrets, Step 1: SEE: What color is it?

Look at the wine. Notice if the wine is clear and brilliant or cloudy and dull. A wine’s color is better judged by putting it against a white background. Colors give the taster clues to the grape variety, and whether the wine was aged in wood. Typically, certain grape types give darker color, and wine that had been oak aged is darker in color or more brick in hue.

The intensity of color within each varietal gives the drinker an idea of how the wine will taste. As a general rule, color saturation tends to go hand in hand with flavor intensity. In fact, here’s a neat trick used by many winemakers and sommeliers to describe a wine they know nothing about: just start naming things that are the same color as the wine!

Wine is pale straw colored? The wine has flavors yellow apples, pears, ginger, white pepper, and hay, like our L.01 “Skin Contact” Chardonnay blend.

Wine is pink (rose wine)? The wine displays hints of strawberry, watermelon, cherry, cranberry, roses and hibiscus, like our L.02 “Urban Flora” rose.

Wine is dark purple/red? The wine has aromas of black cherry, blackberry, plum, and iron-rich soil, like our L.08 “Wanderlust" red blend.

See? Now you can bullshit like you’re a wine expert too!

Wine Tasting Secrets, Step 2: SNIFF/smell: What do you smell?

Smell is the main sense used in wine tasting, so sniffing the wine before tasting is essential. A wine’s quality can be judged by its nose and taste. Consider what you are smelling. What does the aroma remind you of? Fruits or vegetables? Herbs or spices? Vanilla, chocolate, toast?

If all you smell is grapes and wine and alcohol, that’s fine! The aromas in wine are often more subtle than beers and cocktails, so it can take some practice (aka drinking more wine) to get used to it.

One trick is to smell “past” the wine-alcohol flavors, sort of ignoring that baseline flavor that is in all wines. It is the other flavors beyond that which distinguish wines from each other. I know one sommelier on our team (Michael Bogowitz) who gargled Bacardi 151 before tasting wine, to accustom his palate to the flavors of alcohol so he could taste past them.

Another trick is to start smelling everything around you to train yourself to recognize smells. Quite literally, start smelling the flowers (as you walk around the neighborhood, bouquets in the office, etc), the dirt (crouch down, take a handful of dirt, and actually smell it!), the spices (when you’re cooking, smell each spice, add some to your dish, then smell the dish again, to see what it contributes). And so on! Engage your senses. Wine can be a conduit to activating and practicing your senses.

Wine Tasting Secrets, Step 3: SWIRL: Give it air.

Swirl the wine a couple times. Heavy wines will be deeper in color and generally more intense on the nose. Sweeter or higher alcohol wines, being denser will leave thick, viscous streaks (called legs) down the inside of the glass when swirled.

The swirling also volatilizes aromas and increases the intensity. It isn’t necessary, but it can be a really good trick to enhance the aromas if you are struggling to pick out any aromas from just smelling it. The act of swirling the wine agitates the liquid, causing aromatic molecules (esters, terpenes and other groups) to “flash” off the liquid, turning into a gaseous form that we can smell. This is because we can’t technically smell liquids (try snorting some wine and you’ll see what I mean). It is the aromatic gases coming off the liquid that we smell. Thus, swirling enhances smell.

Wine Tasting Secrets, Step 4: SIP: What do you taste?

Take a slightly larger sip than usual and hold the wine in your mouth for 3-5 seconds letting it coat the surface. It is here that the complex taste experience and characteristics of a wine actually happen. Look for sweetness, fruitiness, saltiness, acidity, bitterness, and alcohol.

What’s your overall impression? Does any component over power the others or is the wine is balanced? What flavors do you get that are different from what you smelled? Trust your instincts here, and just explore this sense of taste.

Technically, “taste” is defined amongst winemakers and flavor professionals as being only the basic tastes (sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami). These, along with physical sensations such as spice or astringency (dryness), are the only things we technically experience from the wine in our mouths.

“But I taste strawberry!” you say. Well, actually you taste a particular mix of sweet and sour, which combines with what is called “retronasal aroma” in our mind to create what we perceive as “strawberry flavor.” To distinguish these, flavor scientists refer to a simple equation: aroma+taste=flavor.

Retronasal aroma is the aroma experienced what you drink or eat something. With a closed mouth, you aren’t “smelling” the thing through your nostrils. The aroma is actually going through your mouth, through the retronasal cavity that connects to the nose (think of if you have ever snorted something out of your nose when laughing with a full mouth and closed lips). Aroma makes its way through the retronasal cavity into the nose, and we smell it. Our brain combines those smells with the tastes we experience in our mouth to create the perception we call flavor!

Don’t believe me? Try holding your nose with nostrils closed and tasting the wine. Any flavors beyond sweet-sour-salty-bitter-umami will no longer be there, or be very muted compared to tasting the wine without holding your nose.

Wine Tasting Secrets, Step 5: SAVOR: Does the taste linger?

The finish is the sensation you get from actually swallowing the wine and it can be very different from the taste you get on your palate. What you want to look for is an alcohol taste and the length of time the wine taste stays with you. This length of time is called the finish and some wines can linger for as long as a minute.

Many newer wine drinkers refer to the finish as “that nasty taste red wine has after you drink it.” We get it; most people find this taste to be a negative one when they first start drinking wine. This is why most new wine drinkers gravitate towards white, rose, and smooth red wines, which have less of this “finish.”

This finish comes from a variety of sources. It is technically the combination of alcohol, acidity, bitterness, astringency, sweetness and flavor that gives us this lingering “finish.” Because white wines have less tannins, they tend to be less bitter and less astringent but perhaps higher in acidity and sweetness, giving them a smoother but shorter finish. Red wines tend to have more tannins and alcohol, giving them a longer finish with more weight and complexity, but likely less smoothness.

There is no “right” finish. Or rather, whatever you like is best! Beyond that, it is simply one more thing to learn and note when tasting a wine, to enhance your understanding and experience.

Conclusion

And that’s it folks! You now know the basics of wine tasting, and can drink your wine with a bit more knowledge and bit more appreciation for wine!

Or, you can scrap all of this advice, and just chug that wine out of the bottle and have a grand time!

However you choose to drink, enjoy it!