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1 Chapter 1 : Come and Taste It at The Grapevine in Gruene Historic District Al Martino - Come Share The Wine The street were dark and the night was cold and yet I walk alone I saw the lights of a cosy place with lanterns all aglow Somebody cried, Dont wait outside, come. The following wine tasting tips are practiced by sommeliers to refine their palates and sharpen their ability to recall wines. Anyone can taste wine, all you need is a glass of wine and your brain. There are 4 steps to wine tasting: A visual inspection of the wine under neutral lighting Smell: Identify aromas through orthonasal olfaction e. Assess both the taste structure sour, bitter, sweet and flavors derived from retronasal olfaction e. Develop a complete profile of a wine that can be stored in your long term memory. How to Taste Wine 1. Look Check out the color, opacity, and viscosity wine legs. Smell When you first start smelling wine, think big to small. Think of broad categories first, i. Getting too specific or looking for one particular note can lead to frustration. Broadly, you can divide the nose of a wine into three primary categories: Secondary Aromas come from winemaking practices. The most common aromas are yeast-derivative and are most easy to spot in white wines: These aromas are mostly savory: Our tongues can detect salty, sour, sweet, or bitter. All wines are going to have some sour, because grapes all inherently have some acid. This varies with climate and grape type. Some varieties are known for their bitterness i. Pinot Grigio, and it manifests as a sort of light, pleasant tonic-water-type flavor. Some white table wines have a small portion of their grape sugars retained, and this adds natural sweetness. Lastly, very few wines have a salty quality, but in some rare instances salty reds and whites exist. Texture in wine is related to a few factors, but an increase in texture is almost always happens in a higher-alcohol, riper wine. We also can detect tannin with our tongue, which are that sand-paper or tongue-depressor drying sensation in red wines. The taste of wine is also time-based, there is a beginning, middle mid-palate and end finish. Think Did the wine taste balanced or out of balance i. Did you like the wine? Was this wine unique or unmemorable? Were there any characteristics that shined through and impressed you? Practice With The Video! Grab a glass of wine and practice the 4-step tasting method guided by sommelier, Madeline Puckette. A good technique is to alternate between small, short sniffs and slow, long sniffs. The act of swirling wine actually increases the number of aroma compounds that are released into the air. Watch a short video on how to swirl wine. Try coating your mouth with a larger sip of wine followed by several smaller sips so that you can isolate and pick out flavors. Focus on one flavor at a time. Always be thinking from broad-based flavors to more specific ones, i. Comparing different wines in the same setting will help you improve your palate faster, and it also makes wine aromas more obvious. Neutralize your nose by sniffing your forearm. How to Write Useful Tasting Notes: Check out this useful technique on taking accurate tasting notes. A Detailed look at the 4 Steps for Tasting Wine: Look How to Judge the Look of a Wine: Color and opacity of wine can give you hints as to the approximate age, the potential grape varieties, the amount of acidity, alcohol, sugar, and even the potential climate warm vs. As white wines age they tend to change color, becoming more yellow and brown, with an increase in overall pigment. Red wines tend to lose color, becoming more transparent as time goes on. Here are some common hints you can look for in the color and rim variation â Often Nebbiolo and Grenache-based wines will have a translucent garnet or orange color on their rim, even in their youth. Pinot Noir will often have a true-red or true-ruby color, especially from cooler climates. Malbec will often have a magenta pink rim. The thicker and more viscous the legs, likely the more alcohol or residual sugar contained in the wine. Smell How to Judge the Smell of Wine: Aromas in wine nearly give away everything about a wine; from grape variety, whether or not the wine was oak-aged, where the wine is from, and how old the wine is. A trained nose and palate can pick all these details out. A single glass can have hundreds of different compounds, which is why people smell so many different things. Wine Aromas Fall into 3 Categories: Primary aromas come from the type of the grape and the climate where it grows. For instance, Barbera will often smell of licorice or anise, and this is because of compounds in Barbera grapes themselves, not because of a close encounter with a fennel bulb. Generally speaking, the fruit flavors in wine are primary aromas. Page 1

2 Chapter 2 : The Flavor of Wine - Winegeeks Come meet Vincenzo Emprin, a wine expert and Olde Ipswich Tours' partner from Piedmont, Italy, who will teach us about the wines of Piedmont, Puglia, and Sardinia. During the event, Vincenzo will show us slides of each region, and then we will taste different wines as he explains them to us. How astringent or bitter is the wine? Tannin is often confused with Level of Dryness because tannin dries out your mouth! What exactly are wine tannins? Tannin in wine is the presence of phenolic compounds that add bitterness to a wine. Phenolics are found in the skins and seeds of wine grapes and can also be added to a wine with the use of aging in wood oak. So how does tannin taste? Imagine putting a used black tea bag on your tongue. A wet tea bag is practically pure tannin that is bitter and has a drying sensation. Tannin tastes herbaceous and is often described as astringent. While all of these descriptors sound very negative, tannin adds balance, complexity, structure and makes a wine last longer. Tastes bitter on the front inside of your mouth and along the side of your tongue. Tannin makes your tongue dry out. Alcohol How much does the wine warm your throat? That said, wine ranges from as little as 5. We interpret alcohol using many different taste receptors which is why it can taste bitter, sweet, spicy, and oily all at once. Your genetics actually plays a role in how bitter or sweet alcohol tastes. Regardless, we can all sense alcohol towards the backs of our mouths in our throats as a warming sensation. Experts at tasting wine can guesstimate the level within 0. Are you in the mood for a light, medium or full-bodied wine? Body is a snapshot of the overall impression of a wine. Boldness in Red Wines Wine Characteristics Conclusions Wine characteristics help identify and relate different wines to each other. Learn how to taste wine and develop your palate. Page 2

3 Chapter 3 : The 5 Basic Wine Characteristics Wine Folly Come Taste the Wine [Peter Juge] on racedaydvl.com *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. This is the true adventure story of an American family living in exotic places - - Ethiopia, Malaysia, Cameroon, Nigeria. Whether novice or experienced the most difficult thing to comprehend when tasting is, where do all the flavors and tactile sensations come from? How can a wine taste like raspberries if it is made from grapes? To understand where the aroma and flavors in wine develop you need to begin with fermentation. When grapes ferment, yeast eats the natural sugars found in the grapes and multiplies. The byproduct of this is carbon dioxide, alcohol and over aromatic esters. Think of an ester as specific aromatic aroma. If you wake up and smell eggs and bacon cooking, do you need to see the eggs and bacon? If you were blindfolded and someone walked you through a barn, into an open field, through the woods and over a dry riverbed, would you be able to identify these areas without seeing them? The aromatic esters of each of these items would conjure an image in your minds eye. Each grape variety has a unique physiological make up with aromatic compounds found in trace amounts within the grape skin cells. The concentration of each of these aromatic sensations is dependent on the grape type and is mostly undetectable until the juice is fermented. Fermentation magnifies and makes these aromas more easily perceived by the nose, so think of wine as a caricature of the grape. When we taste wine we smell the aromas that were created during fermentation combined with the taste and tactile elements of the grape. This is why many times people smell a wine and think they will like it, but when they put the wine in their mouth they say yuk! This causes confusion at first as the brain tries and adjusts to the new stimuli. To better understand the taste and flavor of wine you will need to retrain your senses. This starts by redefining the terms aroma, taste and flavor, and concludes with reviewing components of grapes and wine making that impact flavor in the finished wine. Flavor Although these three words tend to be used interchangeably, they mean very different things to our senses. To better understand the reactive components in food and wine, it is necessary to better define what aroma, taste and flavor represent. Aroma - An aroma refers to an actual aromatic compound with a specific scent that can be identified by smelling. Strawberries, coffee and bacon all have a specific aromatic compound that allows us to identify them solely by their smell. It senses sweetness the presence of sugar, sourness the presence of acidity, bitterness and saltiness. In addition, it can feel heat from alcohol, astringency from tannin and creaminess from milk. I will leave the controversial and complicated subject of Umami out of this article. For example, the flavor of strawberry is the brains association between a specific aromatic compound; a sweet and sour taste; and a specific tactile sensation of the strawberry being chewed. Remember in wine there are roughly different aromatic compounds in varying concentrations that were created during fermentation. So not only is the brain struggling to pull apart all these different smells, but it has the added burden of applying different visual, taste and tactile sensations to aromas it recognizes as something else. Acids â When grapes begin their life as small berries they are all acid and no sugar. As the ripening process takes place the acid level falls as sugar rises and juice increases the size of the berry. During the growing season, acidity levels fall quickly in warmer regions and slowly in cool regions, which can be sensed in the finished wine. Acidity pricks the tongue and stimulates the production of saliva. Because the acidity falls out of wine faster in warmer climates, the wines will taste less tart and will feel rounder than those grown in cooler climates. Extracting these flavors from the skins without extracting astringency and keeping the wine from oxidizing can be difficult especially for a white wine. This is an easy task for ripe grapes, but this also means the wine will have higher alcohol. Finding the balance is an art. Glycerol â This component directly impacts mouth-feel by giving a wine smoothness and weight without overt sweetness or excessive alcohol. The amount of glycerol in a wine is dependent on grape ripeness and type of yeast used in the fermentation process. I have tasted many wines at Malo-lactic Fermentation â This secondary fermentation takes place after the alcoholic fermentation has been completed. This is basically a bacteria fermentation that converts Malic acid into the softer lactic acid. The byproduct creates another ester known as diacetyl, which many of us refer to as butter. The amount of diacetyl produced is dependent on the amount of Malic acid present, the type of lactic bacteria used and the speed at which the conversion happens. Page 3

4 So not all wines that go through ML have obvious signs of butteryness, the winemaker needs to pay close attention to this fermentation so not to rob or overpower the fruit of the wine. Oak â This deserves an article all its own. To keep it really simple, each oak forest has its own set of favor constituents that it can be impart into the wine. I highly recommend, if you get a chance, to attend an oak seminar. Usually you get to taste the same wine aged in a variety of oak barrels that were toasted in variety of ways. Most oak will impart the aromas of vanilla, clove, hazelnut and smoke to name just a few. Oak is also porous and allows the wine to slowly evaporate over time. Excess aging in oak will not only overpower the fruit but will also imbue reductive qualities in the wine. Polyphenols â Polyphenols are an important group of compounds that are found in the skins of the grape and to a lesser extent the pulp of the berry. For tasting purposes they contribute to the wines tannin and color anthocyanins and it is important to note that they are not dependent on each other. Therefore, a wine can be high in tannin and light in color such as Nebbiolo. Prefermented Sugar or Potential Alcohol â This is the sugar created during the growing season that is converted into alcohol. Residual sugar left in solution is addressed below. Sugar is created in the grape via photosynthesis and heat. Higher sugar levels at harvest will cause the grape to be riper, which in turn will increase the alcohol percentage and create a more powerful wine. Because of this correlation between heat sunlight and sugar at harvest, it is possible to taste and feel this in the finished wine. Powerful wines tend to be grown in warm sunny regions while wines with more finesse tend to be grown in cooler growing regions. Residual Sugar â This is the amount of sugar left in solution after fermentation has finished. Most wines contain some amount of RS but most palates are not sensitive enough to taste it once the level falls below 10 grams of sugar per liter of wine. To complicate matters sugar and acidity tend to neutralize each other. So if you taste two wines with the same amount of RS, the wine with higher acid will taste drier. Do not confuse fruitiness with sweetness. All wines are fruity as they are made from fruit; residual sugar refers to the amount of perceptible sugar remaining in solution after fermentation is complete. We do not have genetically altered noses or extra tastes buds or some type of sixth sense that makes us more sensitive to what is in the glass. What makes a Master Sommelier a great taster is our fundamental understanding of how the flavors in wine are developed and the role Mother Nature and the winemaker play in the creation of those flavors via fermentation. In reality, there is only one way to fully understand where the flavors in wine come from, pull a few corks and taste, taste, taste. Chapter 4 : Come & Taste It Craft Beer, Wine and Art Festival coming to Gonzales The Gonzales Inquirer The first lesson in wine you receive comes before you even attend your first tasting class. Chapter 5 : Come taste, tour, and explore! Jost Vineyards No copyright infringement intended. This videoclip has been made for purely entertainment only. Chapter 6 : To Taste the Wine by Fern Michaels Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Come Taste the Wine at racedaydvl.com Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. Chapter 7 : Great! Come taste the wine. - Review of Winery of Ellicottville, Ellicottville, NY - TripAdvisor The Wine Experience: Come taste the wine - See traveler reviews, candid photos, and great deals for Montevideo, Uruguay, at TripAdvisor. Chapter 8 : Come taste the wine - Review of The Wine Experience, Montevideo, Uruguay - TripAdvisor Taste It boxes deliver 8 mini bottles of wine to your door for only $ Discover the stories behind our partner wineries as Page 4

5 you taste your way through their 90+ Points rated wines. Chapter 9 : AL MARTINO - COME SHARE THE WINE LYRICS Come and Taste It at The Grapevine in Gruene Historic District. Page 5