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We’ve come a long way
since our ancestors discovered the secret of making wine.
While the basic enjoyment remains constant, the art of evaluation
and tasting has become a ritual for the wine professional,
with many factors including soil composition and climate
introducing complexity that for many wine drinkers is quite
intimidating.
However, this should not be
so. Your own taste and preferences are always your best guide.
For those who like more detail
on the technicalities of evaluating and tasting Australian
wine, the following section details how wine is generally
assessed. Please note that these are not strict guidelines
and people differ in terms of their knowledge and individual
taste.
Remember, wine should never
be confusing or intimidating. It is to be enjoyed.
Sensory Evaluation - Sight Smell and Taste
Assessing a wine is basically
all about three things, how does the wine look, what does
it smell like and how does it taste.
Sight – How does
the wine look?
When assessing the appearance
of a wine, the following steps can be useful guidelines:
1. Tilt
the wineglass to a 45° angle. Look down into the wine
holding the wine against the white background of a tasting
mat, paper or white tablecloth.
2. Look at the depth
and density of colour, this gives a good initial
assessment of the strength/body of the wine. Full
bodied wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon generally
have greater density than lighter styles such as
Pinot Noir
3. Look at the hue or
shade of colour from the middle of the glass to the
edge where the wine meets the glass (called the meniscus).
The descriptions often used for assessing the colour
of the wine can be pale, mid or deep, green/straw/yellow/gold
for white wines, or amber or pink/purple/crimson/ruby/light,
mid or dark red/inky/tawny/brown for red wines.
4. Does the wine reflect
the light and look bright? A healthy young wine should
look bright, not dull.
5. Observe the wine
as you swirl it around the glass. If the wine sticks
to the sides and is slow to run down the glass, the
term used is having good 'legs' or 'tears'. This
indicates the viscosity (thickness) of the wine and
is an indicator of a more full-bodied style with
either a high alcohol or sugar content, or both.
This should not be taken as an indicator of quality.
Smell – What does the wine smell like?
Smell is the most important
factor in sensory evaluation, it requires training through
concentration and practice, therefore the more you taste
wines the better you will become. What we perceive as taste
is actually what we smell. This makes sense when you imagine
having a blocked nose - food loses its appeal and tastes
bland, which is due to our loss of smell, not taste. We smell
wine through our nose, and once the wine is in the mouth,
through the channel at the rear of the mouth called the retronasal
passage.
Some useful tips when assessing
a wine’s aroma are:
1. Rotate
the glass by the stem or base, coating the glass surface.
2. Put your nose into the
glass and take a couple of deep sniffs.
3. Check the following:
· Cleanliness
Does the wine smell clean like wine, or are there any 'off' musty or
rotten smells that might indicate a faulty wine?
· Varietal
or Fruit Characteristics
A wine's characteristic is described by how it reminds us of another
smell, for example the smell of lemons, chocolate or mushroom. Each variety
of wine has a certain range of common smells.
· Aroma
Aroma describes smells that are derived from the grape itself, e.g. Sauvignon
Blanc – gooseberry, fresh mown grass. These aromas are termed the
primary fruit characters.
· Bouquet
This term originates from the winemaking process and techniques used,
as well as bottle age characteristics and a combination of grape smells,
winemaking and maturation. Terms such as pencil shavings, smoky, vanilla
indicate oak maturation whilst honey and toastiness indicate an aged
white wine.
· Depth and
Intensity
A wine's aroma can be light, medium or deep. Other terms such as fragrance,
scent, intense, rich or pungent indicate various levels of intensity.
Developed by Professor Ann C Noble, the aroma wheel is an
excellent tool to assist in aroma identification. Work form
the inner wheel outwards to provide a more precise description
of any wine you may be assessing.
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