Tasting includes many aspects, and I don't know how long it will take to complete. Now I'll show you the wine tasting part.
How to hold a cup
Don't hold your big hand on a full belly, thinking that this is the most stable way to hold a cup. In this way, the temperature of your palm makes the wine in the cup start to get hot, especially when drinking white wine, champagne and sparkling wine with low temperature. The hand holding the cup also blocks the body of the wine, making it difficult to observe its color.
Don't worry about holding the cup unsteadily. A standard wine glass leg has enough space for you to hold. You can also try to hold the cup holder with your thumb and forefinger like an expert. If you are not used to it, find a comfortable position between your feet and the bottom of the cup.
Sometimes we can see in movies that it is not necessarily so formal for foreigners to hold glasses. Many Hollywood stars also hold the belly of champagne glasses in their hands at the film festival. Why are they holding glasses like this? The French wine culture ambassador's answer to this question is that when they stand or walk, they may hold the belly of the cup to prevent the wine from spilling and soiling their clothes. It seems that not everyone is sure to hold the thin cup legs firmly, but I guess not all foreigners know much about wine culture, especially in the United States, where some of them grew up drinking coke or beer, while in Europe, due to the climate, the temperature of their palms may not have much influence on wine. Randomly, the French may also extend their thumb and forefinger to the belly of the cup, thus enjoying the habit of making exaggerated gestures with their hands. However, people who really understand wine in any country will not hold cups like this. In addition to being an elegant gesture, it can also bring a crisp and beautiful sound when clinking glasses. If two cups are held in your stomach, touching each other must be a bit depressing.
How to observe the color of wine
Color, aroma and taste are the three major elements of wine. A glass of wine begins with color observation.
Hold up the glass and observe its color through the light. Natural light is the most suitable light source to observe the color of wine, and fluorescent light will make the wine appear unhealthy purple-brown. Normal wine is crystal clear without impurities under the light. If it is cloudy, it is bad wine.
Tilt the glass at 45 degrees to further observe the color of the wine on a white background. Generally, a piece of white paper can be lined behind the wine glass. In order to observe the color of wine, professional tasting tables will choose white marble as the table top.
The growth color of red wine generally changes from purple, purplish red, brownish red, brown and light brown. 16-year-old girl-like red wine is bright purple, 25-year-old woman-like red wine is red plum-like purple, and 35-year-old young woman is mature brown red. When the popular wine is old, it is a kind of brown, even dark brown after sunset.
The growth color of white wine changes from light green, yellow, golden yellow, dark yellow, gold and amber. Young white wine is like a lush grassland, with a shallow green light in its body; Because the yellow pigment and a small amount of tannin in wine will gradually turn into straw yellow or golden yellow after gasification, white wine generally suitable for young people will begin to decline when it is golden yellow, while white wine suitable for long-term storage may be in the best drinking period. After decades of storage, the color of wine will turn amber or golden yellow, and sometimes it will be slightly orange yellow, but almost all dry white wines can't be stored in this color, and only a few noble white wines show their peak state when they are amber.
How to shake a cup
In order to increase the contact area between wine and air, make its fragrance fully distributed and promote its oxidation, we should shake the glass in our hands. About shaking clockwise or counterclockwise, we will discuss it with the paranoid French next time. People who have just started drinking have not recovered from holding their cups to pinching their legs, and they have to start shaking glasses like acrobatics again. The inner fear has been lingering with the shaking of the wine. The most terrible thing is that they accidentally fly the wine to the white shirt of the man next to them or spill it on their chest. Shake the glass to test your drinking mileage and the center of gravity of your opponent's glass. People who shake the glass enough can generally turn the beauty in the glass beautifully, while those who don't shake the glass often always turn their wrists carefully. However, there is a very simple way to know the center of gravity of the glass: put the glass on the table, press the bottom of the glass with your index finger and middle finger, and turn it on the table. This shaking method is easy to stabilize the center of gravity of the wine, and it is not easy to shake the wine out of the glass. Watching the magnificent wine dance like a red dress, it seems that your other half has been spinning lightly in your arms, and at the same time it exudes a charming atmosphere.
White wine need not be shaken so violently to avoid excessive loss of wine aroma.
There is still sparkling champagne. Don't bother your wrist, just put the glass to your ear and listen to the unique whisper of champagne.
What is a hanging cup?
When the rotating wine stops, a transparent liquid will adhere to the inside of the glass, forming small wine drops to flow down. This phenomenon is called hanging glass. The composition of these small wine drops is mainly alcohol. Therefore, if there are a lot of small water droplets and stay on the glass wall for a long time, it proves that the alcohol content and sugar content are relatively high, and hanging the glass has nothing to do with the quality of the wine. It is only used to detect the content of substances and alcohol in wine. The higher the alcohol content of the wine, the slower the hanging time, which also shows that the wine is rich in body, and vice versa.
How to enter?
It seems ridiculous that such a simple thing takes so much time, but how to drink is really learned. Different spirits will pay attention to the length of stay in the mouth, and wine is the wine that needs to stay in the mouth the longest. Don't dabble, you can't fully understand. The wine entering the mouth should be enough to fill the whole mouth, but leave some room for it to rotate. Taste buds on the tongue can feel sweet, salty, sour and bitter. Sweet taste buds are mainly distributed on the tip of the tongue, salty taste buds are at the edge of the tongue, sour taste is on both sides of the trailing edge of the tongue, and bitter taste is at the root of the tongue. Sweet taste and sour taste are the main flavors that often appear in wine, while bitter taste only appears occasionally, mainly from phenols in wine, while salty taste is not easy to detect, mainly from minerals in wine.
The aroma of wine in the mouth, in addition to the taste, will also be perceived by the sense of smell through the cavity between the nose and mouth. When the temperature of the wine after the entrance rises, it will start to emit new fragrance. In order to clearly feel the fragrance in your mouth, you can put the wine in your mouth and take a breath to let the fragrance spread throughout your mouth. Until all the taste buds hug and kiss it one by one, after swallowing the wine, the aroma will still linger in the mouth. If you swallow the wine in a hurry, you can't appreciate the world in wine. A sip of wine is a book. You should turn every chapter of it upside down and close it, instead of rushing away just by looking at the cover.
Experience the aroma of wine.
The changing aroma of wine during the ripening process is the most fascinating part of the tasting process, but it is also the part we know the least. The aroma of wine can be divided into: first, the original bouquet of grapes, second, the smell produced by grape fermentation, and third, the aged bouquet. As the storage time goes on, the first two flavors will gradually be replaced by the old bouquet called "bouquet". Ethanol, volatile acids and esters in wine are the main factors that cause the aroma of aged wine. In addition, reduction change is also the main reason for the change of wine flavor.
Not all wines will produce "bouquet". Ordinary white wine, rose wine and light red wine are all rich in the first two kinds of wine aromas, but it is difficult to stand storage for more than one or two years. Some wines begin to go bad after five or six months.
Most white wines are attractive because their floral and fruity aromas come from grapes and fermentation when they are young. However, some high-quality and durable liquor will gradually become more fruity after being stored in bottles for several years, such as sauce, sugar stains, wine-stained fruits and dried fruits. After that, the flavors of dried fruits and herbs such as almonds and walnuts will gradually develop, making the wine rich and rich. Too old wine usually contains spices such as cinnamon, cinnamon leaves and nutmeg, as well as mushrooms such as truffles.
The aged aroma of red wine usually begins to appear in the summer after harvest, and will replace the young bouquet as the main aroma a few years later. The flavor change process of red wine is not only from fresh fruit flavor to heavy fruit flavor like white wine, but also different flavors will appear according to the characteristics of varieties or producing areas, such as spice flavor such as pepper, plant flavor such as fern, animal flavor such as musk or baking flavor such as coffee, and the wine flavor will become more harmonious and have a longer aftertaste. After the heyday, the aroma of red wine will gradually disappear and lose its richness, but occasionally there will be rare aromas such as truffles, tobacco and tea. In addition, in the aging process, the aroma of wine often disappears or fades for a period of time, and then it becomes more and more fruity.
The rich and varied aroma of wine is the most attractive place of wine. The aroma of wine is related to grape variety, brewing method, wine age, year, soil quality and storage time. The flavor of wine aroma can be seen from the concentration, quality and type of aroma. In addition to the rich aroma, whether exquisite and elegant wine is rich and varied is the key to appreciate the aroma of wine.
After opening the bottle, with the passage of time and different oxidation degree, the wine will emit different flavors in turn. In order to feel the change, you can smell the wine at rest, and then start shaking the glass in circles to promote the contact between wine and air to feel the change of fragrance. Every once in a while, because of the different oxidation degree, the fragrance will change into various styles. Excellent wine should not only have a strong and distinctive aroma, but also have a sense of hierarchy and variety.
The order of wine tasting
When arranging the wine tasting sequence, it is best to arrange the lighter wine in front, which can reduce the interference of the first wine to the latter wine. Therefore, dry white wine is generally before red wine, sweet wine is after dry wine, and the new year is before the old year. This is a general rule, for example, wines with bad years should be ranked first even if they are old for a long time. The main principle is that the heavier the taste, the sweeter the wine should be as far as possible.
How to simply judge whether it is good wine?
The method of judging a good wine is simple. As long as the wine feels comfortable in the mouth, it is good wine. Every bottle of wine has its own characteristics. As long as it suits you, it is good wine. Of course, you can't blindly listen to other people's opinions. You can't be sure until you try it yourself.
To judge whether this bottle of wine you like is of high quality, first look at whether the color is deep, transparent and shiny; Then smell whether the fragrance is rich, whether the taste is smooth, complex, balanced, elegant and layered; Whether the aftertaste is balanced, elegant and lasting.
The better the quality of wine, the more unforgettable it will bring you, just like a kind of outstanding beauty, which is unforgettable and deeply imprinted in your mind. If you haven't had this experience, it proves that you haven't been exposed to real good wine. Continue to drink more, and your tasting ability will be improved with rich practical experience!
Factors affecting the change of wine taste
We believe that the taste of wine will change with the increase of years, the drinking environment and the mood of drinkers. What is the solution? It is normal that wines from the same manor and the same year will be tasted differently by different people, at different times and in different spaces. Because wine is a living individual, different storage conditions, different opening time and different drinking temperature will all cause unpredictable changes in wine. Also, the occasion and mood of the drinker will also affect your feelings about wine. In a word, wine is a wonderful liquid, and you will find new things in her constantly.
Looking for the smell in wine
The aroma of wine is mostly described by the common aroma in life, and we can also describe the smell by the familiar aroma in memory. When identifying, you can first find out the main fragrance, and then slowly find out other auxiliary fragrances; Find out what kind of fragrance it belongs to first, and then subdivide it. The smells you often smell in wine can be divided into eight categories. You can try to find them in your next glass of wine.
Floral fragrance is a common fragrance of young wines, which will gradually fade after a long time.
The smell of fruit. This is the most common aroma of young and fresh wine. With the extension of storage time, the aroma of fresh fruit will gradually change into a stronger aroma of mature fruit.
The smell of dried fruits. After a period of bottle culture, the aroma of fresh fruit will gradually change into the aroma of jam or preserves, and even approach the thicker and greasy aroma of fruit wine or dried fruit, which is a common aroma of sweet wine.
Spice. In addition to the vanilla flavor from oak barrels, most of this aroma belongs to the aroma developed after wine matures.
Plant fragrance. The plant aroma in wine is very diverse, mainly belonging to the aged aroma.
Animal scent. After long-lasting red wine has been cultivated in bottles for many years, a strong animal flavor will begin to appear. Red wine made from grapes from Spain and Morverde in southern France usually has a strong animal flavor.
Smoke and bake. This aroma is related to the culture in oak barrels, especially the different degrees of smoking and baking in oak barrels will affect the changes of aroma in wine.
Other kinds of wine aromas. The aroma of wine is very rich and varied. In addition to the seven fragrances mentioned above, there are many other types of fragrances.
Note: Every answer embodies the efforts of the respondent. Please choose carefully when choosing options after you are satisfied with your answers.