Five Things to Know About Wine Tasting

by Kevin Smith Author

While people are used to seeing others critique food from what they’ve seen in newspapers, magazines, and television shows, many are fascinated with how much effort critics place into tasting wine. Wine tasting has been around for centuries and the approach and views towards it have evolved within those hundreds of years. Before you take that vacation to go wine tasting in Gainesville, GA, here are a few fun facts about this pastime.

There Are Four Tasting Stages

As with critiquing most foods and beverages, wine critics have broken down four areas in which they judge different wines on. This includes how it appears (which looks at color and clearness), how it smells in the glass, what it feels like in the mouth, and the aftertaste. This process utilizes four of the five human senses to look at the product from multiple angles. It helps winemakers know what areas they excel in and what they need to improve upon.

Temperature Plays a Huge Role

A wine’s taste and smell can be drastically affected by the temperature it is placed in. Winemakers have developed a system in which they cool their beverages to just the right temperature after decades of discovering what works best for each individual wine.

If you want your wine to have the best taste, you cool it. If you want your wine to have the best smell, you raise the temperature. Based on the system established, it is recommended that white wines should be placed at colder temperatures than red wines and heavier bodied wines should be placed at warmer temperatures than lighter bodied wines.

Spitting Out Your Wine Is Okay

Normally spitting out your drink would be ill-mannered and insulting, but it is actually recommended for a number of wine tasting regions. As wine is alcoholic, having too much can potentially impair the judge’s score as they continue having more with varying degrees of intoxication.

To prevent this, a number of these places have provided spittoons for consumers to discharge in. Don’t worry about looking callous in front of the wine owner, as they’re used to dozens of people spitting their product out no matter how well it is received. Some regions of the world even allow you to spit on the floor if you want to (though it is best to ask the store owner for what their preferences are).

The Tasting Is Blind for a Reason

The majority of wine tasting events tend to have the judges go in blind. This is especially important because wine has a large varying degree of where it can be produced and how much it can cost. A lot of people tend to think that the best wine is expensive, colored a certain way, and comes from France, so knowing the details about the wine they are tasting might make them feel more justification towards taking points off or awarding it more than they should.

You Can Go to Wine School if You Want

Do you want to learn more about scoring this drink after going wine tasting in Gainesville, GA? Lucky for you, there are actually plenty of wine-based schools all around the United States to give people a better understanding of the beverage and help them become wine connoisseurs themselves. You can learn more about details you’d never thought you’d be picky about and how the process of creating the best wines in the world come about.