How to Taste Wine Including Basic Wine Tasting Terminology

A person who is into wine is called an oenophile which is Greek for lover of wine. The best way to become knowledgeable about wine or a bonafide oenaphile is to drink it and decide what you like.

In order to truly enjoy wine you should take in its smell, taste and sight. In fact, enjoyment of wine is a very sensory experience.

When tasting wine you should first look at the color. Next, you should inhale its scent, this is called the nose and is also known as the bouquet. Wine can be floral, fruity, earthy, leathery, smoky etc.

After inhaling the aroma of a wine, you should hold the base of the glass and swirl the wine around to put some air into it. The wine that sticks to the side of the glass is called the legs. It is often said that the more legs there are in a glass of wine the better the quality of the wine but this is not actually true. Legs of wine actually have to do with the alcohol content of a wine. Alcohol evaporates faster than water so as you swirl wine around in a glass, the alcohol in the wine left on the side of the glass starts to evaporate. The changed alcohol to water mix results in different surface tension areas which causes the wine to forms streaks in the areas of the least or most resistance. The streaks then run down the glass leaving the legs. This is called the Marangoni effect and has to do with physics and evaporation as opposed to wine quality. So, you can call someone's attention to the legs of a wine and pretend to sound knowledgeable but really is has nothing to do with the taste or quality of the wine.

After you look at the wine, smell it, swirl it in your glass and look at the legs, you should then take a sip of it and move it around your mouth in order to determine how it feels on the tongue. This is called the wine's body or mouth feel. The body or mouth feel of a wine has to do with the weight and thickness of the wine. The body can be lighter or heavier, thin and watery or thicker and more oily. The body impacts the feel of the wine on your tongue, how it feels in your mouth and ultimately how it tastes.

Once the wine is in your mouth, move it around all the taste buds on your tongue so you get the full effects of the taste of the wine. This is what is called the wine's complexity. Is the wine one dimensional or does it have many flavors and layers?

When you swallow the wine, the taste that lingers on the tongue is called the finish. Typically the longer and more memorable the finish, the better the quality of the wine

The wine may need to breathe for it to taste better. Allowing wine to breathe means you are exposing it to air which can allow the wine to open up for the flavors to be fuller. This is best done in a glass or in a decanter to allow a larger surface area to come in contact with air. Just taking out the cork and leaving wine in a bottle will not allow enough air to get in to make a difference. For wine to truly breathe it should be exposed to the maximum amount of air possible. To put some air in the wine and open up the flavors you can also use an aerator which you place on the bottle or the glass and then pour the wine thru.

When tasting wine be sure to use your eyes, nose and mouth and, if you want to come across as a wine afficionado then throw in some of the terms described above and you will be well on your way to becoming an oenophile.