How to taste wine

A comprehensive guide for beginners

Wine tasting is a funny thing. Watch professionals in the act and you can be forgiven for thinking the whole thing is a bit pretentious and slightly ostentatious – what with all that sniffing, swirling and spitting.

And try it for yourself and you’ll probably find yourself feeling self-conscious, or even a little bit bewildered. What exactly are you trying to determine, after all?

Well, the truth of the matter is that, despite all the snorting and gargling, wine tasting is a very useful way of understanding what is going on in a glass and trying to gather some information about the wine you’re about to drink. It can give you hints as to a wine’s age, the grapes that might have been used, particularly techniques employed by the winemaker, how long it has been aged for, and even whether the wine has faults.

It can also help you to build up a personal set of references to help you determine which wines you like and which ones you aren’t so keen on. That helps you to build a closer, and more personal, relationship with wine and develop your own individual set of preferences.

But the best thing about wine tasting is that it’s completely optional. So if you can’t be bothered with all the faff, you can skip the body of this article and jump to the important bit at the end – where we say “cheers!”.

For the rest of you aspiring sommeliers, read on…

It’s personal

Before diving into the steps of the wine-tasting process, it’s important to grasp that wine tasting isn’t about memorising specific flavours or descriptors. Instead, it's about creating a framework of observations based on your own palate. There are no wrong or right aromas and tastes – we each have different personal associations with smells and flavours. So, it’s best to approach wine tasting with an open mind and let the sensations trigger their own responses in your palate, your nose, and your brain. It’s about what you get from it, not what others say.

And don’t forget, wine is a living product with the potential to surprise even the most seasoned taster. Wines develop over time, and each time you taste them, they can offer something new. Which is part of the joy of wine.

So, let’s take a look at the three key steps involved in tasting wine.

Step 1: Looking at the wine

Clarity

The first thing you should consider when visually appraising a wine is it0’s clarity. Normally you would want your wine to be clear not cloudy, free of anything floating particles, and with a bright lively appearance. If you’ve got all of those, the chances are you have wine that is in good condition.

But…

It’s important to note that clarity comes from filtering and fining – processes that are increasingly considered to be ‘high-intervention’ and can involve the use of chemicals. And in an age where organic and natural wines are becoming increasingly common, you’ll often find wines that haven’t been filtered or fined. So if you’re tasting an organic wine, don’t be surprised to see less clarity in the glass, and even the occasional particle.

Viscosity

Viscosity refers to how a wine clings to the sides of the glass after you’ve given it a bit of a swirl. These droplets, often referred to as “legs” or “tears,” can tell us a lot about the wine’s alcohol content and sugar levels.

Wines with higher alcohol content tend to have thicker, slower-moving legs, while lower-alcohol wines display thinner legs that move down the inside of the glass faster. I’m not a chemist, so I can’t give you an expert breakdown of what’s going on here, but it’s basically due to the relationship between alcohol and surface tension, where higher-alcohol wines evaporate more slowly and leave a denser trail.

Sweet wines, like dessert wines, also exhibit thick, slow-moving legs because of their sugar content. For example, a glass of Pedro Ximénez or Vino Tierno from Málaga will often show highly viscous legs.

The Colour of Wine

Wine colour will obviously tell you if the wine is red, white, or rosé (or even orange if you're getting adventurous). But it goes beyond this. The colour of a wine is your first clue to aspects like which grapes might have been used, whether it has been aged, how much alcohol it contains, and to some extent how the wine has been made.

Having a good look at your wine before you start swirling and sniffing is a helpful starting point to get to know the wine in your glass. Here are some of the factors that can influence the colour of a wine.

Colour and grape variety

Different varieties have different skin pigments which can impact the darkness and colour of a finished wine. Red grapes like Pinot Noir often produce wines that are quite pale and light, whereas Cabernet Sauvignon tends to produce deeper and denser wines. On the white side, wines made with Sauvignon Blanc tend to have a pale, greenish hue, while an oaked Chardonnay can give a wine a rich golden colour.

Colour and age

As wines age, their colour often evolves and changes. As red wine ages, it tends to lose its vibrant colour, transitioning from deep ruby or purple in young reds to garnet, tawny, or brown tones in older wines. A brick-red rim around the edges of the glass is a good indication that the wine has spent some time ageing.

White wines become darker over time. Young whites tend to be pale, straw-like, or greenish, while aged whites develop more golden, amber, or even brownish tones.

Colour and winemaking technique

There aren’t too many techniques in the winery that will have a direct impact on the colour of a wine. But extended skin contact is one of them. The amount of time the grape juice spends in contact with the grape skins will impact how dark the colour of the final wine is. This is especially true of red and rosé wines, but can also be noticed in some whites. In fact, some winemakers will intentionally leave the grapes juice to infuse with the skins for an additional period of time before fermentation, to extract more colour and characteristics from the skins. This process is usually carried out at low temperatures to delay the start of fermentation, and is often referred to as a ‘cold soak’

So there you go. You can already get a sense of grape variety, alcohol content, age and winemaking techniques simply by looking at the wine in your glass. Now let’s get our noses involved.

Step 2: Smelling the Wine

A wine’s aroma is the most complex and telling aspect of wine tasting. Our sense of smell is deeply connected to memory and emotion, and in wine, it plays a pivotal role in the overall tasting experience.

The aromas come from chemical compounds locked up in the wine, so in order to give them the best chance of getting up into your nose, we need to mix them with air. And the simplest way to do that is to give your wine a swirl. Moving the wine around in the glass causes molecules on the surface to break off and mingle with the air around them, so that when you take a sniff of the air in the glass, you’re pulling in all those compounds and running them through your olfactory system to get a really good sense of what’s going on.

Great. But where do those aromas come from in the first place, and what can they tell us about the wine?

Well, we tend to divide the types of aromas we get from a wine into three categories:

• Primary aromas

• Secondary aromas

• Tertiary aromas

(original naming huh!)

Primary aromas

Primary aromas come directly from the grape itself, offering clues about the grape variety and the wine's terroir (the environment where the grapes are grown). In amongst primary aromas you would expect to find plenty of fruit. Red wines will tend to give you aromas of strawberries, cherries, blackberries, or plums. White wines will often give you citrus, tropical fruits (pineapple, mango), or orchard fruits like apple and pear. Wines made with Pinotage, for example, will often have aromas of cherry and blackberry. Whilst a white Viognier will often give you more notes of orange and stone fruits like apricot and peach.

You can also expect to find floral and herbal aromas. Red wines like Pinot Noir may have hints of violet or rose petals. Whilst cool-climate wines like Sauvignon Blanc or Cabernet Franc, can often produce green notes like bell pepper, mint, or fresh herbs.

Secondary Aromas

Secondary aromas develop during the winemaking process, so they tell us a little about fermentation and ageing techniques used by the winemaker.

Yeasty or bready aromas can arise from fermentation, especially in Champagne or sparkling wines, which often exhibit brioche or doughy notes due to their extended contact with yeast during secondary fermentation.

Dairy aromas are often found in wines that have undergone malolactic fermentation, a process where sharp malic acid which is found naturally in grapes, is converted to the softer and rounder lactic acid by bacteria. Malolactic fermentation takes place in many red wines, as well as a few whites, and gives the wine a buttery, creamy, or yoghurt-like aroma.

Possibly the most common types of secondary aromas come from a wine being aged in oak barrels. Wines aged in oak barrels often show aromas like vanilla, caramel, coconut, or toast. The intensity of these aromas depends on the age and type of the oak barrel used (more of that in another post).

Tertiary aromas

Finally, you might notice a few tertiary aromas when sniffing your wine. These come from ageing. As wines age – especially in the bottle – their aromas evolve and develop over time. The fruit aromas in white wine go from fresh and zesty to dry and more profound (think grapes vs raisins). Whilst in red wines you’ll start to notice more stewed or jam-like fruit aromas. You can even detect new aromas like nuts or honey, or earthy, vegetal notes.

But don’t forget, this is a personal experience. So instead of trying to detect what you read in the textbooks, relax, let your mind wander and try to identify the smells and associations that come to your own mind.

Step 3: Tasting the Wine

So we still haven’t had a swig and already we’re getting a really good feel for what’s going on in the wine in our glass. But by now your taste buds are no doubt watering, so let’s get on to the all-important tasting part!

The actual tasting of wine involves more than just flavour; it’s a combination of taste, texture, and finish. Each of these elements works together to form a complete picture of the wine.

Tasting Technique

To help get the most flavour out of your wine you should take a small sip and gently slosh the wine in your mouth, making sure it coats as much of your mouth area as possible. This allows all parts of your palate to detect various sensations. If you can, inhale gently through your mouth without swallowing the wine. This aerates the wine in your mouth, amplifying aromas. Just be careful not to suck the wine down your windpipe!

Once you’ve given the wine some time in contact with your palette, you can either swallow the wine or spit it out. Professionals will usually spit – as much as anything because they are likely to get through a lot of wines in the course of a tasting, and they don’t want to end up drunk!

For the rest of us amateurs, swallowing is highly recommended.

So that’s the tasting technique out of the way. But what exactly are you looking for?

Taste Components

Well, wine has a combination of five elements that we are looking for when we taste: sweetness, acidity, bitterness, tannins, and alcohol. The best way to pick them up is to determine which parts of your mouth are being ‘activated’ when you slosh the wine around inside it.

That’s because we detect those different taste components in different parts of our mouth.

We detect sweetness on the tip of the tongue. In wine, sweetness is caused by the amount of residual sugar left in a wine after fermentation. It ranges from very dry (typically less than 3 grams of sugar per litre) to extremely sweet (somewhere closer to 5-15 grams per litre). It’s not the same as the fruity flavours that we’ll discuss shortly.

We detect acidity on the sides of the tongue towards the back (you know that sensation when you suck a lemon and your mouth starts watering?). Acidity provides freshness, making the wine feel crisp and refreshing. High acidity and that mouth-watering sensation are key to wines like Chablis or Txakoli.

Though subtle, some wines also have a touch of bitterness, particularly if they have herbal or vegetal notes. You’ll notice this more at the back of your tongue.

Tannins contribute to a wine's structure and texture. They come from grape skins, seeds, and oak barrels and provide a drying sensation in the mouth. Tannins soften as wine ages, making older wines feel smoother. You will mostly notice tannins with red wines and will detect them on the top of your mouth, and around your gums.

Finally, there’s alcohol. Alcohol adds weight and warmth. High-alcohol wines feel heavier and give a warming sensation to your mouth. In fact wines where alcohol is very noticeable are often described as ‘hot’. Conversely, lower-alcohol wines feel lighter and crisper.

A good wine has these four or five elements working in harmony together. Whilst some wines will have dominant characteristics – a crisp white wine will be quite acidic for example – the aim of the best winemakers is to produce a wine where acidity, sweetness, tannins and alcohol are balanced to produce a delicious ‘togetherness’ in the mouth.

And then there are the flavours…

Flavour Profiles

The flavour of a wine is a combination of the taste sensations you feel in the mouth and the aromas you get from your olfactory system. So you would expect to find those same aromas you notice when sniffing the wine coming to the fore when you taste it.

However, one of the interesting aspects of wine is that whilst some aromas are more noticeable when you sniff it, others can become more pronounced when you taste it. So a wine may have a clear aroma of dark plum, but you might notice more red fruit, like strawberry, in the mouth. You may also notice secondary or tertiary aromas become more distinct as they combine to form flavours.

So, you may hear experts say that a wine has a clean, fresh nose with notes of lemon and citrus fruits, but in the mouth, it gives more stone fruits and tropical flavours.

You’ll also hear people talking about the principal features of wine. These are the characteristics that are most notable when you taste it. Wines that are described as ‘fruit-forward’ will tend to have stronger fruit flavours. For example, Zinfandel often has jammy fruit, while Chardonnay might show ripe apple or peach.

‘Earthy’ wines will display flavours reminiscent of soil, mushrooms, or wet leaves. Old World wines like Bordeaux or Burgundy often have strong earthy characteristics.

And barrel-aged wines will likely offer flavours of cinnamon, clove, vanilla, or even tobacco.

These combinations and characteristics are what primarily define a wine and they are what we are trying to pinpoint when we taste them. If you can get to a point where you can recognise these different aspects, then you’re well on your way to becoming a proficient taster – and more importantly, starting to recognise and describe the kind of wines you enjoy.

And finally, the finish

The finish is how long the flavour of the wine lingers after you swallow (or spit). A long, complex finish is often the sign of a well-made wine. Wines can have a fruity finish, spicy finish, or one that emphasises earthy, mineral, or wood-driven notes.

If the flavours of the wine dissipate quickly after tasting, we say that the wine has a ‘short’ finish. If the flavours linger on your palate and even evolve as they fade, then we say the wine has a ‘long’ finish.

A short finish is common in lighter, simpler wines. But in fuller, more rounded wines, and more high-quality wines, you would typically expect long finishes that can last several seconds or even minutes.

In summary

Wine tasting is about engaging all your senses. From the visual clues provided by colour and viscosity to the aromatic complexities of primary and secondary aromas, and finally the taste and texture on your palate, each step gives you deeper insight into the wine's story.

But more than anything, wine tasting is personal. It's a way of building a direct connection with the wine you drink. It encourages you to pay attention to the sensations a wine induces and get more of a feeling for whether the wine is for you. And it's about building your own catalogue of aromas, flavours, and textures. Over time and with practise you'll sharpen your ability to identify and appreciate the nuances that make each wine unique.

So, there you have it, our comprehensive guide on how to taste wine. And for those of you who skipped the main body of the article...

...cheers!