Comprehensive Guide to Wine Tasting

Wine tasting is an art and requires the usage of the four senses of taste, smell, sight and touch. Whether it is red wine or some other kind, in order to appreciate its true quality you need to be a good wine taster.

How to Hold your Wine Glass

Make sure to hold the wine glass so that the rim is towards you. This helps channel the aroma to help you smell it better. This position of the glass will also ensure that you are able to swirl it without getting the wine spilt.

How Much to Pour

Ideally, you should pour as little as an inch of wine into your glass. If you taste more than one type of wine, you should pour even lesser. The rule of thumb is to start with lighter wines such as white wine and then move on to the fuller bodied ones such as red wine. Through such a progression, your taste is sensitised to appreciate the denser wines better.

How to Evaluate Wine Quality Using Your Senses

There are four aspects to assess the quality of any wine. The first is the wine’s appearance. Second is its aroma, third the way it feels against your tongue and last how it tastes in your mouth. The best way to gauge the colour of a wine is by looking at it in daylight.

Colour: The colour of a wine is an indicator of its age. You need to hold the glass up and place it against a white coloured background. This helps you get the exact colour of the wine. In the case of white wine, the colour will enhance as the wine ages. However, the exact opposite is true of red wine. The younger versions have more reddish and burgundy tinges to them whilst the older wines have brownish colouring, especially on the rim.

Smell: The true smell of a wine is obtained by swirling it vigorously inside the glass. The topmost layers will provide floral as well as fruity aromas whilst deeper layers reveal richer scents. The smell of wines differs from spicy to floral to even woody fragrances.

Touch: The way the wine feels against the tongue also indicates the quality. Wines differ in touch from flabby and flat touch to refreshing zingy sensations. Most wines will have tannins in them, which act as preservatives. These impart a prickly sensation on your tongue when you swirl the wine around inside your mouth. The older the wine, the more mellow is its touch. The best wines have a soft and rich touch to them.

Taste: This is the last stage of the wine tasting process. You need to sip a small amount of the wine and then swirl it around inside your mouth all around your tongue. Once your tongue is saturated with the wine you should keep the wine inside for a brief moment. The taste will differ from full-bodied to light acidic to crisp. You might also find the wine tastes similar to the smell.

The Aftertaste or Finish

It is important to gauge the wine’s aftertaste because it provides the final impression about the quality. The finish or aftertaste can range from short to long. Tasters often describe this as the length of the wine. The best wines have the longest finish and that is the true indicator of the quality.

Wine Aromas

There are many different kinds of aromas, which you can expect from a wine. These differ according to the method of manufacture, the source of the fruit and other aspects. The main aromas or bouquets of wines range from vegetative to woody, fruity to caramelised, chemical to earthy, nutty to pungent, floral to spicy, microbiological to oxidised and many more.

What Describes the Best Wine?

Now that you know how to taste wine and assess the differentiating aspects you need to know how to assess high quality wine when you see one. Whether it is red wine or white wine you can determine its quality based on the colour, aroma, touch and taste. In addition to these four basic aspects, there are other factors such as whether the food complements the wine, if all aspects of the wine are in proportion or balance, if the finish is long enough to leave a lasting impression.

Knowledge of Grape Varieties

It is also important to be knowledgeable about the various kinds of grapes and the wine making process. This education helps you appreciate the wine tasting process even more.

Never rush through a tasting process. You need to experience the wine through all your senses and really feel it to assess its quality. This is an art, which takes time and patience to master.

Safe Wine Trading Online

A wine auction can be the best way to safely sell and trade wines online. There are plenty of auction sites these days, which list the best quality wines in the market.

Rated Websites

One of the primary advantages of selling wine through auction sites is that you can check out the ratings of each site to assess its service levels. For example, certified organisations as well as wine experts rate websites and grade them according to the type of wines sold and the customer satisfaction scores. These are reliable statistics and can provide you with vital clues as to which wine auction site you would like to sell.

Most auction websites have a seller and buyer reputation (feedback) system where wine buyers and sellers will rate themselves based on the experience of their wine purchase or sale. You as the buyer or seller can read what sort of feedback buyers and sellers have left to a particular member which can help you in making a decision.

Various Quantities of Wine Sale

Whether you have a large case of wine to sell or just a couple of bottles, you can easily sell it by leveraging using online wine auction sites. If you are a boutique winemaker and wish to sell your wines to consumers directly, you can easily do this through an auction site. People love direct access to organic, vintage varieties of wine and if you have stock then you can quickly reap in the profit.

Quicker Sales

An increasing number of winemakers and connoisseurs of wine are recognising the benefits of wine auction sites. Such sites expedite sales by means of the certified authorities they have in-house. These persons taste and rate the wine as per the quality and if your wines have a high-grade certification, you can be sure of a quick wine sale.

Trading or Barter

Online wine auction sites also have a mechanism to facilitate trading of wines. Thus, if you are able to find a counterpart willing to exchange high-quality wines with your wines, you can easily trade wines online. There are thousands of dedicated exchanges or trading wine sale sites online. These websites allow people to trade wine without hassles. In addition, in some websites membership fees are not applicable for bidders. If you wish to sell your wines through such wine auction sites, you need to pay membership fees.

How to Purchase Wine Online Safely

If you plan to buy wine it can be a pretty daunting experience. For most novice buyers, the lexicon of wine related terms itself can be confusing, not to mention the numerous wine sale sites online. In addition, the process of wine tasting is the benchmark of assessing the quality of a wine. Thus, an online purchase may seem to be a dicey situation for any buyer, since there is no scope to assess the quality online. This is where online ratings can help. Almost every reputed wine auction site will have ratings and certifications provided by a recognised body or panel of experts. These ratings are indicative of the reputation and credibility of the brand. By selecting such websites to buy wine, you can be assured of a reliable service.

Security Certification

Online financial transactions are part of any wine purchasing activity online. However, these are fraught with risks such as the danger of fraud because of sensitive credit card data being exposed. This is where the security certification of the wine auction site plays a critical role. If the site has an SSL certification, it means all financial transactions are safe and secure. Some websites will use third party payment companies like PayPal where transactions are secure and is some cases will provide insurance for your purchases.

Plenty of Choices

Always look for a wine sale site, which offers you plenty of options. There are literally thousands of sites online, which offer a fantastic variety of wines. Thus, if you wish to buy wine online then you can take your pick from thousands of wine varieties.

Convenience

The convenience of payment is another advantage when you buy wine online. The easy checkout process ensures that you waste little time in filling out payment details. Most wine sale sites offer expedited shipping and flexible returns policies, which safeguard the consumer’s interests.

Educational Articles

Most wine sale sites not only facilitate wine purchases but also educate the customers. There are thousands of articles available on such sites, educating novice buyers about the nuances of wines, the different varieties available as well as how to assess the wine’s quality. There are wines, which are recommended by top experts. Several wine sale sites offer an option of future purchase. Through such an option, you can make the payment now and choose a delivery date in the future. These sites do not charge extra for the storage costs involved. You can select an appropriate place for the delivery.

Reputation of a wine sale site is critical when you decide to buy wine online. The market is saturated with plenty of wine sellers online. Hence, always be sure to check buyer and sellers reputation, make sure there’s an e-mail address or contact us page within the website in case you have a question or concern.