Wine tasting 101: How to see, smell, sip and savor

Opinions are like noses, everyone has one. And when applied to wine and how to taste it, opinions are different. Some self-appointed wine experts will tell you that you are entitled to any opinion about a wine you like, so long as it's theirs.

We'll have none of that here.

Instead, here are a few simple how-tos, with the understanding that no two people taste wine the same; one person's opinion of a wine is no more accurate or better than another person's. The difference between a professional and an amateur wine taster is experience and knowledge.

To keep it simple, then, this approach to wine tasting can be broken down into three steps: Sight, Smell and Sip. And Enjoy, since enjoyment is what we all aim for when tasting and drinking wine.

Sight

One of the real pleasures of wine tasting (and drinking) is looking at the wine in a clear crystal wine glass. Choose a clear stemmed glass with an 8- to 10-ounce bowl that tapers in at the top. Why the taper in a minute.

Pale straw, golden yellow, light ruby, deep garnet, are all colors of white and red wines in various stages of development. The presence of oxidation, where too much air has gotten into the wine, turns these colors brown; think of a slice of apple left on a plate. Play a word association game with color: California chardonnay usually has a medium to deep golden color, while cabernet sauvignon shows deep ruby to opaque garnet.

Today's wines have a brilliant appearance with no haze or small suspended particles.

Thanks to modern refrigeration, stabilization has eliminated tartrate crystals that stick to the bottoms of corks or collect at the bottom of a bottle of young white wine. In the past, the presence of tartrate crystals freaked out consumers who thought they were ground glass, and to allay this fear, winemakers called the crystals 'wine diamonds.'

Beyond the clarity of a wine, the thing to look for is color correctness. White wines, of course, are not white but various shades of yellow, from pale straw to deep golden, but a white wine with hints of browning should be suspect.

Oxidation or browning in red wine is harder to see, so for a good look at the color, hold the glass by the stem and carefully tilt it away from you, checking the edge of the wine as it climbs up the interior surface of the glass. A thin line of nearly colorless wine should give way to light pink or red, then a deeper ruby or garnet color.

Checking color correctness is also a good way to calculate the health of an aged red wine that may have been subject to some oxidation.

After checking the color, prepare for smelling the wine by swirling the wine gently, holding the glass by the stem and scribing tight arcs in the air. It takes practice, so if you're not comfortable with the free-form swirling technique, place the glass on a table top and swirl.

Smell

Smelling is the most important of the three because by putting your nose in the glass and taking a good sniff, you can tell just about everything you need to know about the wine. A tapered glass helps concentrate the aromatics. While smelling is primary, tasting will confirm what you smell. Sounds a little wonky, but it's true.

An old bar trick required a blindfolded person to hold his or her nose, then sip a glass of Coca-Cola, a glass of Pepsi-Cola and a glass of 7-Up, then identify which is which. Our minds get confused when we can't see or smell what we are tasting.

Winemakers and wine professionals use a special vocabulary to describe what they smell and taste in a wine. You can consult a glossary of wine terms in any number of wine books, but for the wine consumer, it's important to use personal terms that you understand, then store them in your memory for future use.

Common scents such as honey, sweet spice and cedar are understood by most people. Try not to use esoteric terms that are difficult to put into words. For example, banana and licorice are readily recognized by most people.

The sense of smell is powerful and long-lasting. A specific scent we experienced long ago may be stored in our memories, only to be brought back with a bang years later when smelling the same scent again in a different setting.

My mother used to cook with animal lard, a distinctive smell almost unknown today, but I was taken back in time years later when I entered a restaurant in Budapest. I couldn't put my finger on why until it came to me that the kitchen was using lard.

The stimulus of scent is a powerful, evocative tool in wine tasting. So, smell the wine and try to put the smells into words to store in your wine memory.

Sip

After smelling a wine for that first indication of its health, age, quality and correctness, it's time to taste. Holding the glass by the stem, swirl the wine again and take a good strong sniff, then a small sip. Roll the wine around in your mouth so that it comes in contact with all of your taste buds, especially the sides of the tongue where detection of acidity is most acute.

The idea is to gauge the wine's acidity, sweetness (if any) and level of tannins. On average, there are between 2,0r00 and 8,000 taste buds on the tongue. The once-popular 'Tongue Map' held that sour or acid was detected on the sides of the tongue behind salt, with sweetness on the tip and bitter (tannin) at the far back of the tongue. The belief now is that we taste all components everywhere on our tongues.

The ideal wine will present all of these components in perfect balance, with nothing sticking out. But the perfect wine is rare, so look for things that are out of balance, like excessive drying, bitter tannins, sharp acidity that overrides the fruit and too much sweetness for the wine type.

Finally, apply these few tips as a general guide, while keeping in mind that wine is meant to be enjoyed in a social setting and not over analyzed, especially at the dinner table.

Gerald D. Boyd is a Santa Rosa-based wine and spirits writer.