FOOD & DRINK
You can only perceive four tastes - sweet, sour, bitter, and salt - but the average person can smell over 2,000 different scents, and wine has over 200 of its own
Swirl your wine around the glass Why do we swirl the wine? To allow oxygen to mix with the wine, releasing the esters, ethers and aldehydes, which yield its bouquet. In other words, swirling aerates the wine and gives you a better overview view of the aromas. Look at the colour and especially the ‘legs’ that trickle down the inside of the glass once the swirling has stopped. The legs correspond to the alcohol content, the longer the legs run down the glass, the higher the alcohol content. Musty, cloudy or unclear wine is not good and should be returned or thrown.
Aroma This is the most important part of wine tasting. You can only distinguish four tastes - but the average person can smell over 2,000 different scents, and wine has over 200 of its own. Now that you have swirled the wine and released the bouquet, you should smell the wine three times. The third smell usually gives you more information than the first smell did. Smell is a very important step in the tasting process which people simply don’t spend enough time on.
Pin-pointing the nose of the wine helps you identify certain characteristics. The problem here is, many people want someone else to tell them what they are smelling. Am I smelling citrus, apricot or straw? What about black cherry, leather or tar? No one knows what you are smelling, only what they are smelling in their own glass with their own nose. It can be different and you have to have experienced a smell before you know it actually exists, so if you’ve worked around food or gardens before, then you’ll pick up natural smells easier.
The best way to learn your own preferences of wine styles, is to ‘memorise’ the smell of the individual grape varieties. For white, just try to memorise the three major grape varieties: Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and
Riesling. Keep smelling them and smelling them until you can identify the differences, one from the other. For the reds, it’s a bit more difficult, but you can still take three major grape varieties: Pinot Noir, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon. Try to memorise those smells.
Another interesting point while focusing on smell is you are more likely to recognise some of the defects of a wine through your sense of smell. Following is a list of some of the negative smells in wine: • Vinegar/sherry - too much acetic acid • Cork (dank, wet-cellar, musty smell, oxidation - wine absorbs taste of defective cork
• Sulphur - too much sulphur dioxide
Sulphur dioxide is used in several ways in the winemaking process. It kills bacteria in wine, prevents unwanted fermentation and acts as a preservative. It often causes a burning or itching sensation in your nose if overused (as it is in many commercial wines).
Taste To many people, tasting means taking a sip and swallowing immediately. This isn’t tasting. Tasting is something you do with your taste buds. Remember, you have taste buds all over your mouth. They are on both sides of the tongue, underneath, on the tip, and they extend to the back of your throat. If you simply take a gulp of wine and throw it down your throat, you bypass all those important taste buds.
It is important to determine where the sensations of taste are taking place, and specifically where they occur on your tongue and in your mouth. Bitterness in wine is usually created by high alcohol and high tannin. Sweetness only occurs when there is residual sugar left over after fermentation. Sour or tart indicates the acidity in wine. Here is where you ‘find’ these sensations on your tongue.
Sweetness Found on the tip of your tongue. It’s a sensation you can taste right away.
Fruit characteristics Found in the middle of the tongue.
Acidity Found at the sides of the tongue, the cheek area and the back of the throat. It’s most commonly present in white wines.
Tannin
The sensation of tannin begins in the middle of the tongue. Tannin frequently exists in red wines or wood-aged white wines. When the wines are too young, it dries the palate to excess.
One thing you should also do as part of your tasting is take a sip of wine and draw a bit of air into your mouth along with it. This opens up your retro-nasal passage and further aerates the wine and helps bring out the flavours in your mouth.
Texture Texture is the feel of the wine in the mouth - smooth, velvety or perhaps astringent are common terms used to describe texture. ‘Creamy’ is a term often used to describe the texture of rich wines that are low in acid. The best wines will have a great mouthfeel, being either silky or velvety in texture. How do you know if a wine is a good one or not? If you enjoy it, it is a good one. Don’t let others dictate taste to you.
Balance
One of the most desired features in a wine is good balance whereby the various flavour components are in harmony with no individual component (such as acidity, tannin or oak) present in excess. When all the parts are in harmony, the wine will have a sense of elegance and completeness.
Finish
This is the last impression of the wine after it is swallowed. How long does the wine’s taste linger? Fine wines have a clean, long finish. A lingering aftertaste is considered a plus while a short finish or little, if any, lingering aftertaste is undesirable.
With over 25 years of professional experience in the wine industry, Brad Mitton imports selected international wines for leading sommeliers in Central Europe. He is based in the South of France and travels throughout Europe running gourmet events with Club Vivanova.
Brad Mitton is the founder and owner of Mitton International Wines (www.
mittonwines.com) based in Berlin and Club Vivanova (
www.clubvivanova.com) based in Monte Carlo. Bradley recently launched the start-up Brad’s Wine Subscription (
www.brads-wine.com) after demand for monthly wine deliveries from his clients.
112 | SUMMER 2021 | ONBOARD
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164
