What To Look For When Tasting Wine?

Want to try a wine? Don’t know which one to try? There are 100’s of varieties of wines available and each of them has a different taste and aroma. The best way to figure out which wine you want to taste is to find out the elements it’s made up of. 

Wines come in a variety of flavors, from red to white, still to sparkling, sweet to dry, and floral to fruity. Take a look at its visible characteristics like color, age, and strength, and then sniff to test the aroma. If you are new to wines, this may feel a bit overwhelming.

Beginners often believe wine is just sweet, sour, or fruity, but it’s a lot more than that. It can be acidic creamy or malty. Wines consist of tannin, the more the tannin, the more drier it will be. Lesser the tannin, the sweeter it will be.

Some Common Wine Flavors Found Globally

• Acidic: Your mouth may start to moisten as soon as you taste your wine and experience a tingling feeling around the back of your throat. The more acidic the wine, the longer it leaves your mouth moistened. 

• Balanced: A wine that has a harmonic balance of fruit, alcohol, and acidity without any one component dominating the others is balanced.

• Bold: Bold wines have a strong flavor and are frequently fruity. 

• Complex: A complex wine is one whose flavor varies significantly from the initial taste to the aftertaste.

• Full Body: Full-bodied wines have richer flavors and frequently have higher alcohol ccontent

• Lighter Body: Lighter-bodied wines feel much more delicate in the mouth.

• Lemony: Lemon flavors are common in wines that lack oakiness and have not been matured in oak barrels.

• Mineral: Wines that lack fruitiness or spice and taste rather metallic with tanginess are mineral wines.

• Oaky: Anoaky-flavoredd wine has been matured in oak barrels. They have a buttery, vanilla flavor in white wines and a more smoky flavor in red wines.

• Zesty: A wine that has a prominent citrus aroma and acidity is considered zesty.

Follow 5 S’s Approach To Tasting Wine

Wine tastes like heaven and is an absolute treat for your senses. If you are planning to attend a wine tasting event in Seattle, make sure you follow this 5 S’s approach:

1. See

The way a wine looks tells a lot about it. Whether the wine is red or white, a deeper or saturated color suggests how powerful the flavor may be. It also reveals how old a wine is. While red wines lose color with age, white wines develop deeper yellowish tones. You may often notice some sediment in the wine. If they are visible, let them settle down and then pour carefully.

2. Swirl

Tasting wine involves swirling it in the glass before sipping it. After swirling, wine may tend to remain on the side of the glass for a considerable amount of time which shows how viscous it is. The more viscosity, the better and long-lasting the mouthfeel is.

3. Smell

Swirling allows the wine's aroma to ascend and flow better. Now it’s the time to smell the wine by directly placing your nose over the glass. You may smell various components in the wine that often seem like the fragrance of wood, minerals, plants, or fruits.

4. Sip

Now comes tasting! Take a sip of wine from your glass and hold it in your mouth for a few seconds. Upon sipping, you may notice three different types of flavors, mainly categorized as:

• Primary flavors: Derived from grapes, these flavors often taste floral, fruity, spicy, or a combination of all of these.

• Secondary flavors: Originating from the fermentation process, these flavors are often oaky as they give the after taste of oak barrels wine is placed in.

• Tertiary flavors: These flavors develop as the wine ages and are very dominating.

5. Savor

Savoring the wine taste on your palate is the last step in your wine tasting journey. Enjoy the flavors for a while and decide which wine taste you love the most.

How to Taste Red Wine?

Red wine may feel drier in your mouth due to its naturally greater tannin content. It is recommended to serve red wine slightly chilled, at about 16°C. This soothes the tannins and enhances the flavor of red wine. Try drinking your wine from a glass than the bottle itself. Sipping slowly from a glass allows the ethanol to evaporate and the tannins to soften.

How to Taste White Wine?

The ideal temperature range for storing white wine is 8–10°C. Make sure to remove it from the refrigerator and let it warm up for a few minutes before drinking. Use a glass with a smaller bowl for optimal tasting results and try the 5 S’s approach for a smooth drinking experience.

Taste The Best Wine At Ballard Beer Box

At Ballard Beer Box, we have a collection of over 300 wine and beer bottles, a taproom with 14 rotating taps, and a wine tasting room. If you are a die-hard wine lover, we bet to have got something for you. Order your choice of wine or beer with freshly prepared pizza from locally sourced organic flour.

Join us for an amazing drinking experience at our kids and pet-friendly beer bar in Seattle.

Browse our full list of wine-tasting experiences and discover the journey from vine to wine on an immersive day that satisfies all the senses.