A few weeks ago I signed up to do my WSET2. I’ve been wanting to do it for a while, but decided this year would be the year! One of the good things about social distancing is that courses that you would normally need to take time off to do are going online, making them more accessible for everyone! So I’ve been whittling away at this course and learning so much! When I was thinking about what to write about this week, I thought it would be nice to share some of the takeaways I’ve found really useful so far in a tips for wine tasting article.
WSET2 is a course that anyone can take to learn more about wine. It isn’t cheap, but it helps you understand how to taste wine and learn about the principal and regionally important grape varieties of the world, the regions in which they are grown, and the styles of wine they produce. I just love drinking wine and don’t really believe in getting too serious about enjoying it, but I’m hoping that doing this certification will help me write better articles for you all – so we can all benefit!
I’ve already done an article on how to taste wine before, which gives you a general guide to the wine tasting process. But I wanted to share a few more nuggets of information I’ve learnt to help you with your wine tasting! So here are my top 5 tips for wine tasting.
Tip for wine tasting #1: You can taste the alcohol level
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This may seem a little silly, but hear me out. The alcohol level is something that you can use to understand a wine more. Now, it is on the label, so you can totally cheat! But if you want to learn how to pick it up in a wine, you totally can. Alcohol level will appear on the palate and give you an indication of how alcoholic the wine is pretty quickly. This might seem like something you’ll find in all wines, but after you try this with a few wines, you’ll see that they do vary!
So how do you taste the alcohol level in a wine? Simply take a sip of the wine and swirl it around your mouth. After a little, if the wine is a high alcohol wine you’ll start to get a burning sensation in your palate and sometimes in your nose! Once you notice this it can be a bit overwhelming and sometimes envelop the flavours of the wine, making it hard to pick them. Sometimes this means the wine is out of balance. But it will give you an indication of how alcoholic the wine is – the more burn you get, the more alcohol.
Something like a Zinfandel or Shiraz is going to have this sensation on the palate, both being high alcohol wines. But a White Zinfandel will have none of this sensation (the one we tried was 8.5% alcohol).
Tip for wine tasting #2: Alcohol is usually related to body
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This tip for wine tasting flows on from the other. My partner really struggles with the concept of wine body, and so I thought this was a good one to share. The body can be light, medium or full in a wine. They described this as the difference between water or milk in your mouth. Not the creaminess, but the heaviness of the feeling of the liquid. Confused? Well, there’s a neat little trick to pick up on the body.
The body is pretty much linked to alcohol content. So if you get a real burn in the palate from the alcohol, it’s pretty likely that the wine is a full-bodied wine. Think about a Shiraz that is quite alcoholic and full of bold flavours. This is usually a full-bodied wine. On the other hand, something like a Sauvignon Blanc won’t have as much alcohol content so is a light-bodied wine. This doesn’t always apply – for example, Pinot Noir is usually light-bodied but can have higher alcohol content. But this simple trick can give you a bit of an indication of the wine body.
Tip for wine tasting #3: Length is in the flavour
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One thing that really stumped me was picking the length of a wine. This is how long the wine sticks around in your mouth. You’d think this would be an easy thing to pick. But wines have a little trick up their sleeve that can stump you. You see, there are other things that stick around on the palate that might make you think the wine has length, but it doesn’t. These are mainly sugar, acid, tannin and alcohol. All these elements come together to make your taste buds do a little dance that you might mistake for length. But a wine’s length is actually in the flavour and how long these flavours sit on your tongue.
So what wines have a length? Well, if you can pick the flavours out in a glass of wine, and can taste them for a long time afterwards, this wine has length. If they drop off right away, it has a short length. If those raspberry type flavours are sitting in your mouth for a long time, you’ll be pretty safe to say the wine has length. Just try to split the actual flavours out from the acid, tannin, sugar and alcohol. I found it really helped me to take two sips: one for the flavour, and one for these other components. Separating them out makes it easier to pick them!
Tip for wine tasting #4: Red and black fruit for red wines, tropical and stone for white wine
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I don’t know about everyone else, but I find picking flavours in wines really hard. I will smell a wine and love the aromas, but putting a name on them is another story! This course is helping me to start identifying these better, and I learnt a tip which might help!
There are plenty of types of fruits in wines, but they can be split into 4 categories: red fruit, black fruit, tropical fruit and stone fruit. Now it can be hard to narrow down fruits within these groups, particularly when you’re thinking across all of them. But there’s a way to narrow it down that will help you pick the fruits more easily. In general, when tasting a glass of red wine, flavours will come from red and black fruit. When tasting white wine, flavours generally come from tropical and stone fruit. Once you’ve got that down pat, you can pick one of the two as you smell. Then within that, start to narrow it down even further. Is it strawberry or raspberry? Nectarine or Apricot. This is really hard to do, but something fun to practice!
Tip for wine tasting #5: Acid can be found on the side of your tongue
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The final tip is about picking acid. Acid can be low, medium or high in a bottle of wine, and there’s a pretty easy way to pick it because it will do some fun things to your taste buds! Acid is essential for making a wine balanced and giving it a good lift, so having it in a wine is a good thing as long as it is balanced out with other things.
So how do you pick acid in wine? Swirl the wine around your mouth. The more acid it has, the more sensation you’ll get on the sides of your tongue. The wine will make you salivate automatically if it is high in acid. If it is low, you won’t get this sensation, or it will be very subtle. This is why high acid wines are great with food because they get your palate ready!
In summary: tips for wine tasting
I hope these 5 tips for wine tasting help you when you are tasting wine. It’s most certainly not something you need to do to enjoy wine! If you just want to sip on your wine in peace, I salute you! Go enjoy your glass or two without thinking too much about it. But if you want to learn about the wine your drinking and why you like it or don’t, tasting can really help. It might also help you understand some of the descriptors you’ll see on wine or at wine tastings.
What’s your favourite wine tasting tip? I’d love to hear more!