Wine is like many other pleasurable experiences, in that you can enjoy it even if you don’t know much about it, but a little effort at learning more can increase your enjoyment many times over. It’s like enjoying watching a baseball game more if you know something about the rules and strategies, or enjoying golf more if you actually take a few lessons. And learning more about wine is especially fun, because a lot of the learning process involves actually drinking wine.

Part of the enjoyment of wine comes from learning which wines you like, and then exploring outside of your comfort zone. Suppose you’ve tasted and like wine made from the merlot grape, and you’ve sought out wines with the name “Merlot” on the label. Then consider that many wines from Bordeaux, especially many of the less expensive ones (but also some of the outrageously expensive ones), very often are made predominantly with merlot grapes. Then seek out wines that have “Cabernet Franc” on the label, or from France, that have “Chinon” on the label, and see whether you might like that grape even better than merlot. We will explore some of these possibilities in future columns.

But first, let’s get to the basics—getting the most out of every glass of wine that you try. First, pour some wine into a glass, preferably one with a stem. Pour just an ounce or two at first. Then look at the wine. This is where having a glass with a stem comes in handy—you can look all the way through the wine without your fingers being in the way. Tilt the glass at perhaps a 45-degree angle. This is where having poured a little bit comes in handy—you won’t spill any wine. Note first whether the wine has any cloudiness, suggesting a winemaking flaw. Most wines today will be clear, so this will usually not be a problem. Then consider how deep the color is. If you have a white piece a paper with writing on it, can you read the text through the wine, or is it so dense that you can’t see through it? This will give a hint as to how full bodied it is. What color is it? If it is a white wine, is it near water, is it a deep golden yellow, or somewhere in between? If it is a red wine, is it purple, more of a brick red, or somewhere in between (a ruby color is common). This will give some hints as to how old the wine is, but many other factors could be in play as well (another subject for a future column). Of course, reading the year on the label will give you an even better hint, so if you already have the bottle in front of you, make a mental (or better yet a written) note that wine from such-and-such a grape and this many years old tends to have this color, and slowly build up a mental library.

Then smell the wine. First, swirl the wine around in the glass for a few seconds. This isn’t just a snobby affectation. It helps release the aromas in the wine. Put your nose right into the glass and sniff. First, does it smell like wine, or are there some “off” odors, like sulfur, or, worse, wet cardboard (an indication that the wine is “corked”)? Then consider whether you smell fruit—does it remind you of apples, blueberries, blackberries, melons—as the primary aroma, or do you get a lot of other aromas, like herbs, spices, leather, smoke, etc.? This could be another hint as to the stage of development of the wine, and also of the level of quality. Generally, the better quality wines have more complex aromas. Picking out these aromas takes some practice, because they don’t always smell just like those fruits or other items, and they may be faint or mixed in with the other aromas, but this is the kind of practice that’s fun!

Now you finally get to taste the wine. Take a sip. You might want to suck some air through your mouth to aerate the wine even further and bring out more aromas. First, note the level of sweetness (or dryness). Then note the level of acidity, or the “bite” you get on your tongue. Note the extent to which the wine feels like it’s more substantial than water—its “body.” Is it full-bodied, medium-bodied, or light bodied? Again, this is a matter of practice, tasting wines with different body levels, to get a relative sense, but that’s fun practice. Note the level of tannin (in red wine mostly), which will give a kind of your-lips-are-sticking-to-your-gums kind of feel for the most tannic wines, but which will impart a kind of dryness to the flavor even at lower levels. Decide whether you like tannin—definitely a matter of personal taste. Note the fruit flavors, and the other flavors like herbs, minerals, spices, vanilla (from oak barrel aging, most likely), that are likely to be similar to what you smelled in the wine before tasting it. Then swallow, and pay attention to how long the flavors linger in your mouth, and how pleasant they are, after you’ve swallowed. This is a wine’s “finish.”

That’s it. As you proceed through the bottle, one hopes at a leisurely pace, pay attention to the extent to which further airing of the wine changes it. How different was your last glass from your first glass?

The wine education learning curve can be increased by doing blind comparisons. Take two identical glasses, and put a label on the bottom of each. Pour a different wine into each glass, and have someone switch the glasses around when you’re not looking, or, I find that if I deliberately try not to pay attention I can switch the glasses around enough that I can’t remember which is which. Then, using the tasting process above, try to guess which wine is which, and then see if you were right (it helps if you remember up front that you poured from one bottle into glass “A” and from the other bottle into glass “B”). If you were right, either congratulate yourself on beating the 50/50 odds of being wrong, or taste them again to fix in your mind the differences. If you guessed wrong, taste them again knowing what they are, and then switch the glasses around again and see if you can get it right this time.

Your first tasting assignment: Get a bottle of Merlot from California, Chile, Australia, anywhere but Europe, really, in the $10 to $20 price range. Then get a bottle of Bordeaux wine from France, in the under-$20 range. There are actually quite a few Bordeaux wines from the excellent 2005 vintage still out there. Then go through the blind comparison process, using the sight, smell, and taste analysis described above. Guess which one is which. Once you’ve revealed the identities to yourself, taste them again. Try to fix in your mind the characteristics that identify the Bordeaux as compared to the other Merlot wine. Decide which one you like better. It’s quite possible that you’ll like the non-Bordeaux better. Then try the wines again with food, even just some cheese. Now consider whether the Bordeaux tastes better with food than it did without food. If you can find friends or significant others interested in exploring this with you, so much the better!

About the author

Paul W. Jameson is the owner of Jameson Wine Experience, providing wine-tasting services for individuals and organizations, located in Vienna, Virginia. Paul is a member of the Society of Wine Educators, and has an Advanced Certificate from the Wine & Spirits Education Trust. Paul will be happy to organize a blind-comparison themed tasting, or any other format wine tasting that interests you. Paul is a regular contributing author to Wine Wisdom. HungryGrape enjoys a strong partnership with Jamesonwine. Visit jamesonwine.com to learn more.
Copyright © 2010 by Paul W. Jameson