Wine Tasting Tips For Beginners

The art of wine tasting can seem very complex to outsiders. Its practice is as ancient as its production and its terminology is constantly evolving.

As overwhelming as it may seem at first, there are a number of tips and insider secrets to get you through your first tasting - without being noticed as the beginner!

In the glass
It’s necessary to tilt the glass slightly in order to see the color variations of the wine  from the center to the rim of the glass. Intensity of color gives clues to the variety and the age of the wine, but not quality. A young white might be straw-colored in the center and have a green-tinged edge, whereas a brownish tinge at the edge suggests an older red.

Smell
Sommeliers are trained to notice the smallest differences in aromas. As a beginner, try to pin-point if your wine is fruity, floral, spicy etc. Swirling the glass gently (being careful of your white shirt!) can help bring out the aromas. 

Taste
Take a decent mouthful rather than a tiny sip. Then swish the wine around your tongue & teeth and note the taste. What flavors stand out to you? Does the wine seem balanced? Acidic? Take your time, this is meant to be an enjoyable experience! Spitting the wine into an empty glass in generally the norm, but swallowing is also fine.

Take some time to reflect on the aftertaste. A lingering taste can often be found in good quality wines. Most importantly, do you want more?  

Score
Wines are generally scored on a scale of 100, similar to school grades. A wine scoring 85 + is considered good, whereas a wine scoring 50 is like an F grade. However, taste is very personal and not everyone is a fan of the numerical scale.

That’s it - you’ve survived your first wine tasting. Now on to the next bottle!   

Enjoy cheese and wine and painting therapy

Have you always wanted to have a go at painting your very own work of art? Do you like drinking wine and eating cheese? Would you like to spend an evening doing all of the above?

Then the Cheese and Wine Painting Club could be just what you need.

The monthly sessions, held at Pocklington Arts Centre, give everyone the chance to paint their very own masterpiece on canvas to take home, while enjoying two glasses of wine and a cheeseboard.

The sessions are run at venues up and down the country by Ed Sumner, founder of the Cheese and Wine Painting Club who grew up in Pocklington, and attended Pocklington School, who is keen to dispel a few of the myths around painting.

Ed said: “We are dispelling the myth that painting is a hard thing to do. We supply all the material, as we want to have art making accessible to everyone in a friendly, relaxed environment.

“It is an opportunity to switch off from the real world for a few hours.” The next Cheese and Wine Painting Club session at the centre, in which participants will learn to paint Abstract Flowers, is on Thursday November 8 at 7.30pm.


Read more at: https://www.thescarboroughnews.co.uk/lifestyle/enjoy-cheese-and-wine-and-painting-therapy-1-9412899

7 best chilled red wines

For those in the know, red wines don't always have to be served at room temperature, while whites must be cool. Our European counterparts often serve simple reds chilled, but it seems to have taken longer for the UK to catch on.

Lighter skinned grapes such as pinot noir, cabernet franc and Beaujolais are the best place to start. An hour or two in the fridge to take the temperature to 12C to 14C should suffice. You don’t want to over-chill the wine, otherwise you could lose some of the wonderful aroma.

Heavier, full-bodied reds with lots of tannin won’t perform as well chilled, so leave the barolo in the wine rack for now.

A chilled red works wonderfully with barbecued food or as an aperitif. Charcuterie is another dream combination - just close your eyes and imagine you’re in a rustic tapas bar.

Here are the best chilled reds to drink right now.

Doing exactly what it says on the tin (or the label in this case), this sexy Argentinian malbec is best enjoyed chilled to really bring out the lively fruit. Full to the brim with juicy cherries alongside more savoury notes of black pepper and dried herbs, this was named as one of Decanter Magazine’s 30 Great New World Buys and we can certainly see why. It’s just the ticket with a plate of charcuterie or a selection of cold cuts.

This is a young, fresh, fruity wine made from 100 per cent cabernet franc grapes grown in the Loire Valley. The winery and vineyard were fully converted to organic practices in 2015, which shows in this pure style with soft tannins. Borough Wines suggests serving with Lebanese food, which would work a treat. It’s certainly light enough to pair with white meats, too. Not only is this wine organic, it’s also suitable for vegans and, during the summer, we’d encourage you to try lightly chilling before serving.

Beaujolais is often held up as the perfect example of a chilled red, and the Definition from Majestic is the final word on the matter. It uses only the finest gamay grapes, which gives a depth and complexity you wouldn’t expect to find in such a light wine. Smooth and fruity, expect dark cherries and a delicate floral aroma.

Soft and easy to drink but certainly not lacking in character, this fruity little number from Italy really delivers with its rich plummy flavours. We think it represents good value at this price, and after an hour in the fridge lends itself to almost anything – so no need to keep for special occasions.

Turning the traditional on its head is M&S with this German pinot noir that happily holds its own against many of its Burgundian equivalents. Wonderfully aromatic, even after a light chill, with a well-balanced touch of oak, this medium bodied red has a slightly gamey finish that will be absolutely perfect paired with grouse when in season.

This picturesque vineyard is nestled between ski resorts in the Savoie region – an area becoming increasingly popular with sommeliers. Aside from getting a mouthful of juicy red berries, you’ll also find this a refreshingly light red with flinty minerality which really comes to the fore with a quick chill.

Well-structured acidity makes the mouth water and aromatic violet fills the nose in this red from France’s Morgon region. It’s an easy-drinking style without being a pushover, pairing well with everything from barbecued meats and charcuterie, to grilled asparagus and meaty fish.

How to choose the best red wine

What’s the best red wine? You’ve probably asked yourself this question a dozen times before. But how do you make that judgment call? Do you ask your local wine clerk or scan the labels for something that sounds familiar or prestigious?

The problem with wine recommendations is that they’re often very subjective. What works for one person won’t necessarily work for another, which leaves you with a tricky dilemma. Let’s look at a few ways you can discover a red wine that suits your preferences.

What makes red wine ‘great’?

A great red wine depends on personal taste. To choose the perfect wine for your palate, it’s important you try out as many grape varietals as possible. Red wine tastes different from white wine in a number of ways:

Higher levels of tannin
Higher levels of alcohol
Heavier body
Different flavour profile
Potentially increased complexity

All these qualities come from the fermentation process, where the grapes skins are left in the tank along with the juice. Barrel and bottle ageing also play a large part, with a more aerobic style of wine-making changing the way a wine matures. It’s the nature of these processes and the quality of the grape that has the biggest effect on the flavour and character of the wine.

Finding your sweet spot

Just because a wine is vintage or well-aged, doesn’t mean you have to enjoy it. Ageing aromas are an acquired taste, much like truffles or mature cheeses. For those new to wine tasting, it’s good to vary your options and get adventurous with your choices. We recommend you start with the following grape varieties to get a sense of what you prefer.

Pinot Noir – acidity

Pinot Noir is the perfect red wine for understanding acidity. If you like Pinot Noir, the chances are you’ll enjoy other highly acidic red wines such as Grenache. When you taste Pinot Noir for the first time, you’ll experience a puckering sensation in your mouth, as though drinking a fizzy drink. This is the acid at work. A good bottle of Pinot Noir has exactly the right balance of tannins and acidity to compliment the fruity nature of the wine.

Syrah/Shiraz – body

The body of the wine is also important. Red wine tends to be heavier-bodied than white because of their composition, but each varies according to its origins. Syrah or Shiraz (as the New World likes to call it) is an excellent example of a full-bodied red wine.

You should be able to taste darker flavours such as plum, chocolate and tobacco in Syrah, which add to its velvety/milky quality. If this hits the spot, we recommend you try Malbec for a similar wine tasting experience.

Cabernet Sauvignon – tannin

Next up are tannins. Cabernet Sauvignon is a notoriously tannic wine, which leaves your mouth feeling dry when you swallow. It’s perennially popular in the wine-drinking world, because of its rich, spicy flavour and complementary pairing with red meat. If you like Cabernet Sauvignon, you’ll also enjoy Merlot, Chianti and Rioja, which have similar qualities.

Zinfandel – alcohol

Most red wines are high in alcohol, but Zinfandel is one of the highest. A good bottle is around 15% ABV (the upper end of the scale). The high alcohol content causes Zinfandel to feel ‘bold’ and ‘full’ or, in other words, more intense.

High alcohol levels come from a high amount of sugar in the fermentation process, which the yeast converts into ethanol. You can taste this sweetness in Zinfandel through its ripe, fruity flavour. Shiraz and Madeira are other high-alcohol wines.

Don’t compromise on quality

Another defining factor of great red wine is its quality. You can drink all the tannic wine you want, but if it’s cheap, nasty plonk you’re not going to enjoy the experience. That’s not to say you have to spend hundreds of pounds at the auction house. In fact, it’s possible to pick up the perfect bottle of red wine for less than £40. Here’s what you should be looking for:

Complexity – this sounds a little pretentious, but really what you’re after is a wine with a large array of flavours. For example, a great Cabernet Sauvignon will have hints of cherry, blackcurrant, spice, green pepper, and, if it’s a little older, cigar box, leather, chocolate and savoury.

Intensity – how clearly can you identify each flavour? The more obvious they are, the more intense the wine, and the higher the quality.

Balance – the best wines hold all their flavours in balance. If it’s fruity, earthy, and well-structured, you’re on to a winner.

Three hot weather wine options beyond just rose

A friend recently asked me for advice on wines to drink during summer as the heat bears down. She had enjoyed several rosés but was looking for a way to spruce up her experience beyond pink. Her favourite chardonnay seemed a bit plodding in the hot weather, and cabernet just seemed so autumnal, she said. And she wanted something to serve guests at an upcoming patio party.

After resisting my initial impulse to tell her to double down on rosé, I offered her three suggestions for jazzing up wine in summer.

Try a wine cocktail

Start your evening - and welcome your guests - with something simple.

My favourite is a port tonic, which can be mixed in about as much time as it takes to pull a cork. Popular throughout Portugal, a port tonic is the aperitif of choice in the Douro Valley, the home of port wine.

It's essentially a riff on gin and tonic, with lower alcohol. Just pour one part white port and two parts tonic water over ice and garnish with your favourite citrus fruit. My favourite garnishes are a slice of lime and a sprig of mint. A highball glass is traditional in Portugal, but you can use a tumbler instead. The tonic and citrus provide a refreshing foil for the white port and help invigorate your palate for the meal to come.

Port tonic seems to be enjoying a mini-trend here in the United States. It certainly will be newer and more fashionable than a kir (crème de cassis topped with white wine) or kir royale (using sparkling wine), two French aperitifs that had their vogue a few decades ago.

There is a problem, however: White port can be hard to find. Fonseca and Sandeman are good producers. (Sandeman has several cocktail recipes on its website, including one made with fino sherry and tonic. And yes, Sandeman makes a very nice fino.)

Explore lighter styles of wine

Vinho verde, another Portuguese classic, is ideal for hot weather. It's lower in alcohol than most wines and is often spritzy with carbonation for extra refreshment. And it's usually cheap - often less than US$10 (S$13.65) a bottle - making it a potential competitor for rosé, which has crept up in price as it has soared in popularity.

German Riesling, especially from the Mosel region, and fresh, young Austrian gruner veltliner are excellent choices when the mercury soars. And they are exceptionally friendly with a wide variety of foods, including meats.

Don't give up on the wines you love to drink, though. If chardonnay is your white of choice, look for racier, unoaked versions, such as Macon-Villages from France. And there are any number of New World chardonnays fermented and aged in stainless steel or concrete. Ask your retailer to recommend a few.

Chill your reds

We need to get away from the idea that red wine should be served at room temperature. That's especially true in the summer. Serving it cooler brings out its fruit and often helps the wine taste more balanced.

We routinely chill some lighter-style reds - lambrusco, Beaujolais and barbera, for example. These versatile wines are great for summer fare. But cabernet, merlot, zinfandel and other heftier wines also benefit from some time in the refrigerator door, an ice bucket or one of those chiller sleeves you keep in your freezer. (If you're a wine fiend like me, you have more than one.)

If you forget about it and the wine gets too cold, don't worry. It will warm up. Taste it while it does, and you will see how the wine changes with the temperature.

After all, you have nothing to lose except your summer wine doldrums.