The Art of Wine Making: Having a Trained Nose and Palate to Evaluate the Wine

A wine maker using a Wine Thief to remove wine from a barrel for tasting

Winemakers rely heavily on their senses of smell and taste to evaluate the evolution of their wine from the grapes in the vineyard to the final product that goes in the bottle. While part of this process is science, a significant part is an art that wine makers develop over years of training and experience.

This training and experience are used throughout the wine making process. While there is science (i.e., chemistry) involved, the wine makers use their senses throughout the process:

• In the vineyard, they can measure the grape’s sugar and acid levels, but a trained wine maker will also inspect the grapes, break them open, taste the juice, taste the seeds and evaluate the tannin

• During fermentation, a wine maker will be constantly tasting the wine as the grape’s natural sugars convert to alcohol

• Once the fermentation is complete, the wine maker is again smelling and tasting the wine as it ages

• If the wine is being aged in oak, the wine maker will be evaluating how the flavors of the oak are integrating with the wine

• Following aging, many wine makers will blend their wines in order to achieve the final aromas and tastes desired

• Just prior to bottling, the wine maker will ensure the wine is properly filtered (or not) and ensure that the bottles and bottling process are clean and ready to go

I have always loved the words of a wine maker that I met early in my wine adventures who said that “Making wine is easy. Making good wine is hard.” It is the artistic side of wine makers that make the difference between an ordinary bottle of wine and an outstanding bottle of wine. Cheers!

Fun Fact - How to Reset Your Sense of Smell When Wine Tasting

While our tongue is only able to detect five basic tastes (sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory), our nose is capable of detecting millions of different aromas. And that’s how we enjoy all the wonderful “flavors” that food and drinks have to offer.

When wine tasting, one of the Five S’s is smell.  You place the wine glass directly under your nose and inhale deeply. This can allow you to get a very quick idea of what the wine will taste like and you may even detect some of the wine’s fruit and herbal aromas. But after just a couple of sniffs, your nose tends to become less sensitive to further sniffs of the same aromas.

One way wineries and wine tasting rooms will address this issue is to re-set your olfactory system by having you smell a small container of coffee beans.  This shifts the receptors in your nose and brain to something completely different. That way, when you sniff your next wine, your sense of smell is reset and once again heightened.

But you may not always have coffee beans with you when you are tasting wines. The one thing that you always have with you is your arm. And it can come in very handy when wanting to reset your nose. Just take a quick sniff of your bare arm, right in the crease of your elbow (preferably while not wearing any scented lotions, sunscreen or other scented products). This quickly resets your nose and allows you to get back to smelling the intricate wine aromas.

So, try this quick trick next time you are wine tasting to experience all the wonderful aromas that wines have to offer. Cheers!

Wine Tastings Can Be Truly Eye Opening Experiences

Opening a bottle of wine and drinking a glass will give you the opportunity to taste that one varietal produced by that one winery. For those with some wine tasting experience, drinking that one wine will give them an opportunity to assess the pros and cons of the wine. But, to truly experience differences in wines, you need to sample two or more wines at a time. That’s why doing wine tastings is so important in learning about wine.

The ultimate way to do wine tastings is at a winery or a wine bar that serves tasting flights. In these settings, you get the opportunity to have a couple sips of a variety of wines. And often, it can be eye opening.

At a winery, you usually start with white wines unless they produce rosés or sparkling wines which are a great place to start. White wines are lighter and more delicate in their flavors so that’s why you start there. Then, you’ll move into the red wines that have the bigger and bolder flavors.

But, the most important part of any wine tasting, whether it’s two wines or more, is the side-by-side comparisons and the opportunity to go back and “revisit” a wine. Even those with little or no wine experience will find doing side-by-side tasting interesting. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had multiple bottles opened and served a person one wine and then a second wine. And, the responses are usually the same - “Wow! I like the first one but this second one is really different!” Yes, indeed, they always are!

So, whether it’s a visit to a winery, trying a flight of samplers at a wine bar, or just opening a couple of bottles at home with friends and family, ensure that you take the time to sample the wines, one after the other, to truly understand differences in the wines and to better understand your personal wine preferences. Cheers!

Wine - It's an Experience

A friend was recently talking about wines that he received from a winery’s wine club. He had visited this winery a few years back and really enjoyed their wines. So, he joined their wine club. Every six months he gets a shipment of wine and puts them away for special occasions. A very common scenario.

But, my friend recounted, the last few bottles that he’s opened were just not as good as he remembers.

At the winery, he said, the wines were simply outstanding. They were unlike wines he had ever tasted. They had unique aromas, complex flavors, soft tannins and a finish that seemed to just go on and on. He remembers the wines were amazing!

He talked passionately about returning to the winery soon. To seeing the vineyards, to stand in the quaint little tasting room and sip wine while chatting once again with the very friendly owner. He couldn’t wait.

This is a scenario that plays out regularly with us wine lovers. The wines are often not as good at home as they were when we purchased them at the winery. Are we storing them properly? Does the wine need more time to age? Or, did we wait too long to open the bottle? Why isn’t it as good as we remember?

Or could it have been the vast rolling hills of vineyards, the beautiful winery facility, the fun little tasting room stacked high with wines aging in their oak barrels, the owner standing behind the tasting room counter and telling great stories as he pridefully poured the wine?

I can’t wait for my next visit to wine county. I know I can depend on finding a bunch of outstanding wines and enjoying every moment of the experience. Cheers!

Where You Drink a Wine Affects How it Tastes

Have you ever noticed that wines can taste really good at a restaurant, wine bar or especially at a winery? It's the whole experience, not just the aromas and flavors, that affect our sense of taste.

As I've discovered, a $15 bottle of wine, when served in a high-end restaurant (where they charge you $45 for that $15 bottle), will taste especially good. Somehow, the lavish surroundings, the great service and the wonderful company at the table just makes the whole wine experience so much better.

And, at a winery it can be even more powerful. You are typically in a beautiful setting surrounded by vineyards and being served by someone who is very knowledgeable about the wine or maybe even the winemaker. This experience can significantly heighten the taste of the wine.

This fact is well understood by the publications that do wine ratings. So much so, that they don't allow their tasters to review or rate wines at wineries or restaurants.  They ensure their tasters are in a neutral setting in order to allow them to focus only on the wine (which, by the way, they are tasting 'blind' with no knowledge of who produced the wine or what it costs).

So, keep in mind that the amazing bottle of wine you recently had at that fancy restaurant was probably made even better by all the other glamour around you. And, that's exactly what the wine experience is all about. Cheers!