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Wine Tasting Basics
Ever wanted to know how to taste wine? VideoJug shows you how to look at, smell, and taste wine like a professional with this great video on wine tasting basics.
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Step 1:
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You will need
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Step 2:
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Look
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Fill glass one third full.
Examine the wine for bubbles, haziness and sediment - these may indicate a fault.
Hold the glass at an angle of 30-45 degrees, looking down at the wine.
Varying thickness - shows range of colours.
White wine goes darker with age. Red goes lighter and browner.
Swirl around and look at legs - indicate alcohol and sweetness, not quality.
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Step 3:
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Sniff
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Swirl to aerate.
Put whole nose in, long deep sniff.
Note complexity of smell. Try to identify different smells.
Beginners - difficult to identify smells.
With experience - easier to separate components.
Wine often smells of various fruit, spices, wood. Sometimes more unusual things like leather, oil, tobacco.
Can also smell if wine is faulty. Most common fault is corkiness, caused by chemical reaction in cork. Other faults include oxidation and excess sulphur dioxide.
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Step 4:
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Drink
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Take a big sip.
Suck/slurp some air to get more oxygen in - enhances the taste. Don't worry about looking silly.
Note how wine affects the palate - sweetness, acidity, tannin all tasted in different areas.
Most of the taste actually comes from smell.
Whether to spit or swallow? Reason for spitting is if you are going to taste a large amount of wine and don't want to get too inebriated (e.g. if driving).
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