How to taste red wine?

Tasting step

first episode

Step 1: Control the temperature of red wine. Traditionally, the temperature of drinking red wine is cool room temperature, ranging from 18 ~ 2 1℃ (white wine is between 9 ~ 12℃). At this temperature, the red wine of each year is at its best. A bottle of chilled red wine has more obvious tannin characteristics than red wine at room temperature, so it tastes astringent. The situation of liquor is just the opposite, in order to highlight freshness and acidity, so it is suitable for drinking after being chilled. The correct way to drink is to hold the column of the goblet with your fingers instead of holding the cup with your hands, otherwise the temperature difference of the wine will affect the coordination of the wine.

Step 2: sober up. A bottle of good wine that has been dusty for many years will taste just when it is opened. At this time, it is necessary to "wake up" this wine. Pour the wine into a beautiful decanter and wait for ten minutes, and the smell will dissipate. Sipping generally requires that the contact area between wine and air be maximized. After full oxidation, the rich aroma of red wine is revealed. The treatment time can be extended, preferably one hour, to create an atmosphere full of wine fragrance.

Step 3: Watch the wine. Red wine is red enough to stir people's hearts. When pouring red wine, the basic requirement is that the glass is placed horizontally and the wine does not overflow. In the case of sufficient light, put a glass of red wine on a white paper and observe the edge of the red wine. Most of the well-defined wines are new wines, and the color is even and slightly old-fashioned. If it is slightly brown, you may encounter an old bottle of wine.

Step four: drink. Before you enter the wine, you should smell it deeply in the glass. At this time, you can appreciate the fragrance of red wine. The new wine is very fruity, while the old wine has deeply restrained this flamboyant personality. Swallow a mouthful of red wine, let the red wine stay in your mouth for one minute, roll it on your tongue twice, take a deep breath to let your senses fully experience the red wine, and finally swallow it all, and a delicate fragrance suddenly lingers among them.

Step 5: wine sequence. When drinking, we should follow the principle of new before old, light before strong.

Second set

1. Observe its color-pour the wine into the goblet, hold the foot of the goblet and observe its color.

2. Smell its fragrance-gently shake the glass to release the fragrance and smell its fragrance.

3. Taste-take a sip, let the wine dissolve on the tip of the tongue, and feel its taste and sweetness.

Entrance selection

Look at the occasion of drinking

As an aperitif, wine is different from dessert, and it is also different from the wine that friends drink when watching DVD. In addition to drinking on weekdays, red wine is also very popular at wedding banquets and parties, but the consumption varies greatly in different places and different environments. If you drink a lot of red wine at the party, the price can be cheaper and the types of wine can be more popular to avoid waste. If there are more ladies, you'd better prepare some delicious white wine and champagne.

Look at the collocation of dishes

Choose white wine or red wine. In terms of side dishes, cream chicken is suitable for white wine, and roast mutton should be accompanied by mellow red wine. Red wine with red meat and white wine with white meat. Generally speaking, red wine is suitable with red meat, sauces, cheese and bacon products. Liquor prefers fish and vegetables.

Look at the price

There are dozens to hundreds of cheap wines, and thousands or even hundreds of thousands of expensive wines. The price of wine will change in different countries or different distribution channels. But in any case, the price is always related to the quality of grapes and the work of winemakers. A bottle of good wine mainly reflects the hard work on the vines all year round, and these costs are reflected in this bottle of wine. You can eat high-end snacks or have business banquets. If it is a daily dinner or a family treat, the taste is acceptable to everyone, and there is no need to be too upscale. In short, after locking the money budget, it is convenient to choose and avoid spending too much.

Look at the year

This red wine is more suitable for the old world, so after choosing French or Italian wine, you must choose a "good year" and the taste must be different. For example, French wines are priced by the day, and the year of grapes is related to the rainfall before the harvest of grapes that year. If there is too much rain, the wine will become weak. For example, 199 1 and 1992, it rains continuously in Bordeaux. As a result, the grapes in these two years are not sweet enough and the skin is thin. After brewing, the tannin content is obviously insufficient and the taste is poor. This is why gourmets often use chronologies to compare and choose wines.

Look at the place of origin and place of origin

On the big side, let's first look at the wine in the new world or the wine in the old world. Old world wines in Europe generally taste more complex and elegant, while new world wines taste more lively and pleasant. It's hard to say who is better, depending on personal taste preferences; Then look at the place of origin. Every wine producing country has different producing areas, and their styles and qualities are different. For example, Bordeaux and Burgundy in France are completely different styles.

Look at the category

For example, according to the sugar content of wine, it can be divided into dry type, semi-dry type, semi-sweet type and sweet type. Dry wine doesn't feel sweet and sour; Semi-dry wine has a slightly sweet feeling when drunk; Semi-sweet wine tastes sweet and refreshing; Sweet wine tastes obviously sweet and slightly drunk.

Look at the appearance

The appearance of wine is mostly clear, transparent and shiny, and the color is consistent with the name of the wine. Watching red wine flow from the top of the glass on a white background is not cloudy. Look at the speed at which the wine flows evenly from the glass wall. The slower the flow, the better the quality of the wine. Tilt the side of the glass at 45 degrees and observe a layer of water at the junction of red wine and glass wall. The wider, the higher the alcohol content. Different colors can appear at the junction of water body and wine body, indicating the year of wine. Blue and lavender are three to five years old. Red bricks have a history of 5 to 6 years. Amber is 8 to 10 years. Orange means it has expired.

Look at the aroma and taste.

Until the real entrance, you can feel the texture, taste and level of red wine. If you leave high-quality red wine in your mouth, you should have a smooth feeling, slowly feel its mellow, and then the taste will be enriched; The aroma of wine will make you aftertaste endlessly, and it will not be scattered in your mouth for a long time. At the same time, these scents should be balanced, harmonious, elegant and pleasant. The taste of such wine should also be comfortable and pleasant, and all kinds of flavors are delicate.

How to prepare to drink red wine?

Red wine is placed horizontally, and the cork will decompose and produce sawdust if it is soaked for a long time. Stand up the day before drinking and let the sawdust settle on the bottom of the bottle. Note that the bottom of the bottle of red wine bulges towards the middle. This design is not to hold the bottle well, but to let the sawdust sink into the ditch.

Red wine can't be drunk with ice, nor can it be put in an ice bucket like champagne. The optimum drinking temperature is 10~ 14℃. In winter in Guangzhou, you can drink directly; In summer, it is best to put it in the freezer first, take it out one to half an hour before eating, open the bottle first, put it aside and slowly sober up to let the temperature rise.

How to taste wine?

Look at the color of the wine first. For correct observation, put the glass in front of the white background and tilt the glass slightly outward. Pay attention to whether there are sawdust or impurities, and observe the color of the wine. Brown, broken; Purple, the wine is very young; Deep red, brown in appearance, good wine.

Then there is the smell of wine. Cover the mouth of the cup with your nostrils and take a deep breath. High-end red wine smells very "strong", which makes people feel very strong and complicated. Because the nose is far more sensitive than the tongue, sometimes a glass of wine tastes more and more fragrant after an hour, so that I don't want to drink it later.

After smelling it, I feel very strong, then try to drink it, take a shallow sip, put it in your mouth, push the wine to your mouth with the tip of your tongue, and try to make all taste cells feel it.

How to pour wine?

The bottles of high-grade red wine are collected, because some wine labels are simply works of art. In order to avoid the "flow" of wine labels, the correct way to pour wine is to make the wine labels face up. Old wine (more than 8- 10 years old) must have sawdust at the bottom of the bottle, even if it is three or five years old, some have sawdust. Therefore, be careful when pouring wine. In addition to not shaking the bottle, leave a little on the shoulder of the bottle when you finish pouring it. It is not right to turn the bottle upside down and try to pour the last drop of wine.

How to sober up?

After the red wine is opened, let it stand for 15 minutes to 1 hour according to the type, quality and maturity of the wine, and let it "breathe" with the air for chemical interaction. If you don't have patience, you can pour it directly into the glass (according to international standards, it can't exceed one-third of the glass capacity), or even shake the glass to speed up the chance of wine contacting the air.

There are two ways to shake the glass. One is to pick up the glass and shake it inward. In this way, the glass is suspended, and it takes a little skill to shake it evenly. Another method is to hold the foot of the cup with your forefinger and middle finger, put the whole palm flat on the bottom of the cup, press the bottom of the cup on the table, and rotate it like grinding ink, with less force to avoid the wine overflowing from the mouth of the cup.

How to taste wine?

Expensive and delicious red wine is a work of art, don't "drink" it, but "taste". Before each tasting, shake the glass, then take a deep breath through your nose and take a sip, so that the wine can stay in your mouth for a while before swallowing.

Attention, please clean your mouth before drinking, otherwise there will be lip prints on the cup. Please don't drink it all at once. In addition, drink red wine without sprite or lemon, which will destroy the original flavor of red wine. Shake a small handleless wine cup, one by one to compare the amount of alcohol, not the way to drink red wine.

Tasting red wine generally has the following stresses.

Generally speaking, it takes/kloc-0.5 minutes to 3 hours for wine to sober up after opening, and the aroma and taste of wine will also change. After sobering up, pour into the cup to a third or half cup.

Observe the color of red wine, first observe its color change. Ruby crystal clear color is the top grade. Appreciate its color change through the light. Too black or too black is not a top grade, especially without impurities. Shake can also be called "accelerating hangover" The purpose of this step is to let oxygen enter the wine quickly, thus releasing the trapped fragrance in the wine.

When oxygen enters the wine and produces fragrance with alcohol, it can smell the fragrance, which will change with time.

After tasting and drinking wine, you should use taste buds to feel the taste, let the taste fill around your mouth and then swallow it slowly. Then the taste will extend from the tip of the tongue through the root of the tongue to the throat. When you taste it, you will feel four important flavors: sweet, sour, astringent and aftertaste. After tasting, the wine will remain good or bad, and a good wine aftertaste can last 15~20 seconds.

Aftertaste When you finish drinking the wine, think carefully about whether the taste of this bottle of wine is light or rich, whether the red wine is too astringent (good wine will gradually become astringent after opening for a period of time) or whether the tannins are just right, how much acidity is left in the liquor, and whether there is a strong sense of excitement or smoothness.

The steps of wine tasting

1) Tilt the glass 45 to observe the color of the wine.

2) Shake the glass counterclockwise to release the aroma of the wine.

3) stick your nose into the cup and smell it a few times.

4) Take a deep breath and let the wine circulate in the mouth and reach all parts of the mouth.

Various feelings of wine in the mouth

Taste buds on the tongue can feel sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Sweet taste buds are mainly distributed on the tip of the tongue, salty taste buds are at the edge of the tongue, sour taste is on both sides of the trailing edge of the tongue, and bitter taste is at the root of the tongue. Sweet taste and sour taste are the main flavors that often appear in wine, while bitter taste only appears occasionally, mainly from phenols in wine, while salty taste is not easy to detect, mainly from minerals in wine.

The aroma of wine in the mouth, in addition to the taste, will also be perceived by the sense of smell through the cavity between the nose and mouth. When the temperature of the wine after the entrance rises, it will start to emit new fragrance. In order to clearly feel the fragrance in your mouth, you can put the wine in your mouth and take a breath to let the fragrance spread throughout your mouth.

Tannin in red wine has astringent taste, which will make saliva and oral mucosa lose lubrication and produce astringent taste, and is the main element that constitutes the taste structure of red wine. In addition, alcohol can cause burning sensation in the mouth (especially when the concentration exceeds 18%). The sense of touch in the mouth can feel the consistency and roundness of wine and the stimulation of bubbles in sparkling wine.

Selection of cups and pouring etiquette

After checking the cork, the sommelier should pour about 1/5 cups of wine to the sommelier to check whether the wine is qualified. If there is no problem, the sommelier can serve wine for the guests first, and then serve wine for the sommelier or host.

It is best to have a colorless and transparent glass for wine tasting, so as to see the true color of the wine. The shape is preferably tulip-shaped, and the mouth of the cup is smaller than the body of the cup, which can condense the fragrance of wine; The cup must have high feet, which is convenient for shaking and can avoid raising the wine temperature by hand.

When pouring wine, just fill the glass with 1/4- 1/3, and the glass should be larger (about 300-550ml). The greater the contact surface between wine and air when shaking, the more the fragrance of wine can be released.

As for champagne, it's best to use a long goblet with 2/3 goblets, depending on the color and bubbles.

Terminology of red wine tasting

Available (ready to drink)

Wine that can already be tasted; Wine suitable for drinking; New wines that don't need to be stored, mature old wines and wines that are earlier than expected.

Acetic acid (acetic acid)

All wines contain slightly imperceptible acetic acid (about 0.03% -0.06%). If the ratio exceeds 0. 1%, the sour taste will become obvious, just like the taste of nail polish.

Acidity (acidity)

The acidity of wine is an important factor that causes the structure and thickness of wine (especially liquor). If it is unbalanced with other elements such as tannin, it will cause defects. Sour is usually used to describe wines with too high acidity. The acidity of sweet wine will be slightly higher than that of wine without sugar.

Aftertaste (aftertaste, back to sweetness)

Refers to the entrance to the throat and then return to the sweet. This time, sweet and wine will smell different in the mouth, and there will be a spicy feeling. The longer the aftertaste, the better. Wine tasting is the last pleasant project.

Age/old age (old age/maturity)

Old liquor usually turns from turquoise to golden yellow. Bordeaux red wine changed from purple to crimson, and Burgundy changed from purple to brick red. The actual color change depends on the grape variety.

Aggressive (strong)

Refers to wine with strong tannins, which is very dry and needs aging.

Alcoholic (alcoholic taste of alcohol)

1. Poor balance will produce the smell of alcohol. A strong smell of alcohol will mask the proper aroma of fruit and produce a burning feeling.

2. The alcohol concentration of wine must be marked after the law stipulates. Generally speaking, table wine should not exceed 14%, but there are exceptions, for example, some gold powder generations will have higher alcohol content.

Almond (almond)

It has a slightly sweet taste, which is usually found in Italian liquor.

American Oak (American Oak)

Sauvignon, Merlot and Gemdale aged in American oak barrels will have a strong flavor of vanilla, dill (nine-story tower) and Chinese fir.

anise

Slight licorice flavor, most Spanish red wines will have this taste.

Apple Inc

1. Rich apple flavor, which can be tasted in Chardonnay with slight oak flavor.

2. Fresh apple flavor is the flavor of Esslin wine.

3. White wine brewed from immature grapes has the taste of green apples.

The taste of sour apples indicates that the wine has begun to oxidize.

Apricot (apricot)

Apricot flavor usually appears in sweet white wine and occasionally in red wine.

Aroma (fragrance)

It refers to the taste of wine. Tasting the second step. Some people use aroma to represent the aroma of new wine, and the aroma of wine represents the mature aroma.

Convergence (drying, convergence)

Can grape tannin close the oral mucosa? , produce a dry feeling, which usually appears in immature high-grade red wine.

Attack (first feeling)

Technical term, first impression after drinking. The first feeling of champagne is the thickness of bubbles, while red wine is tannin.

Simple (dry, slightly acidic)

There are two explanations: (1) dry type, which usually appears in younger wines, and (2) slightly acidic, such as Chablis.

Trunk (spindle)

Refers to the backbone of wine. Too many fruits without tannin and proper acidity will be called spindle-free, which is not conducive to aging.

Backward (backward)

Describe that a bottle of wine lacks due performance compared with other wines in the past or at the same time. It can also be interpreted as a wine with delayed ripening.

Balance (balance)

All fruit flavors, tannins, wine acidity and alcohol concentration can be properly balanced.

Banana (banana)

A special taste, usually found in low-alcohol wines.

Barn clearing (smell of earth)

Red wine often tastes a little earthy, but many wine critics use Barnyard to describe Burgundy wine, while Bordeaux uses Earth.

Similar to beaujolais (thin wine style)

Light and fresh fruit aroma, especially cherry flavor, can hardly feel tannin. Suitable for young people to enjoy.

Berries (berries, jam)

Cherry and grape belong to the category of jam fruit. Many red wines, especially Bordeaux wines, have berry flavor, but the shades are different. The red wine brewed by Xian Feizan has a strong berry flavor.

Big (strong)

Describes wine with strong tannins and moderate acidity, which can be aged for a long time. However, too strong wine may be out of balance.

Bitter (bitter)

Tannin will make the wine slightly bitter, and the wine that is too bitter may have gone bad. Italian wine and white wine without sugar occasionally have a bitter aftertaste.

Black cherry (black cherry)

It is a very common flavor in Merlot, Pi Nuo Cao and other red wines.

Black coffee (black coffee)

This pungent aroma is usually found in ripe cabernet sauvignon grapes.

Black fruit (black fruit)

The combination of black cherry, blackberry, plum and other similar aromas often appears in high-quality red wine.

Black pepper (black pepper)

It is a special flavor, which is found in almost all wines produced in hot red wine producing areas.

BlackBerry

It is a common fragrance in red wine.

Blackcurrant (blackcurrant)

It is one of the common fruity flavors in Bordeaux red wine.

Blueberries (blueberries)

This is another less common fragrance, but it can be found in wines made from Fran grapes.

Subject (structure)

The combination of tannin, acidity and alcohol in wine. Let's describe it as low and strong.

Bouquet (fragrance)

Commonly used in mature wine, please see the aroma. Nowadays, the average wine critic rarely strictly distinguishes the difference between the two. Be strictly distinguished, the bouquet belongs to the genus.

Compound aroma after sobering up.

Boxwood (boxwood)

A shrub that smells like cat urine, usually found in some sauvignon blanc? .

Rubus fruit (berry)

Berry and Mulberry are collectively referred to as a certain taste of gold dust belt.

Brass (brass color)

Used to describe the color of sweet wine or aged wine.

Breathe/breathe (awake)

Newly opened wine has a musty smell due to long-term contact with sulfur and cork, and it takes some time to breathe air to remove this smell.

Bright (transparent, moderate acidity)

Used to describe extremely clear color, or high but not too much wine acid.

Bright (transparent and translucent)

The unusually transparent and clear feeling of wine is not necessarily a compliment, but may be the result of careful filtering.

Brown sugar (sweet taste with sugar)

Not too sweet, but it has a pleasant caramel flavor.

Burned matches (the smell of burnt matches)

It smells like a match that has just been extinguished, and the sulfuric acid in the wine may be slightly higher.

Butter, butter (cream)

The rich creamy smell in Chardonnay? This smell is often found. General liquor will also produce this flavor after lactic acid fermentation.

Candied fruit, candied fruit (rock sugar flavor, candy flavor)

An ordinary taste of white wine brewed by Pinocchio.

Hami melon (cantaloupe)

An ordinary white wine made from black Pi Nuo.

Caramel (caramel flavor)

The lingering fragrance of oak. But if artificial sugar is used in the fermentation process, it may also have this taste.

Blackcurrant

French blackcurrant, the usual taste of Bordeaux red wine.

Cat spray (cat urine, cat flea water smell)

Kind of like Musk, not a negative adjective. The wine brewed by Sauvignon Blanc often tastes like this.

Cedar (Chinese fir flavor)

The taste of ripe Sauvignon red wine.

Cherry berries (cherry flavor)

The best red wine has this blackberry fruit flavor.

Chestnut (chestnut flavor)

The usual taste of wine. Especially Burgundy and Chardonnay.

Chewy and thick (soft and sticky)

Used to describe a well-organized wine. It can also be interpreted as rich in tannins.

Chilean pepper (spicy pepper flavor)

strong