Visual Wine Inspection: The First Step Of The Guide To Learn How To Taste Wine

Well, begun is half done. Never was there a more valid motto for wine observation, the so-called visual analysis of wine. It seems absurd, but the first approach with a glass of wine will give you information. It is like a handshake: you will understand what the wine in question is made of.

From the visual analysis, you will understand if it is a white or red wine, and it is not a trivial matter; some wines, if drunk blindly, can easily deceive you. You will then understand if it is a young or mature wine; if it is a light or dense wine, you can hypothesize about this density: is it due to sugar or a high alcohol content? And then, based on the quantity and kinetics of the bubbles, from the perlage, you will understand if it is a sparkling wine, a refermented wine, or a simple, just moved Moscato.

Before starting with the various steps of the visual examination of the wine, however, know that there are no golden rules, only small truths that must be examined and taken cum grano salis.

To help you face a tasting in the best possible way, we have compiled valuable tips to create the ideal conditions before uncorking.

What you need to start tasting a wine

Very well, let’s go. You will need to have a bottle kept at the ideal temperature and placed vertically at least an hour before tasting, a clean glass, a napkin, and a white table. If it is not white, cover it with a white tablecloth or take a sheet of paper.

Proceed calmly, relax. There is no rush. Take 10 minutes to dedicate yourself to this activity. These are your ten minutes of Zen meditation.

Uncork the bottle carefully, clean the mouth of the bottle with the napkin and smell the cork. If the cork smells like wine, everything is fine. If it smells like cork, there are problems, and it will undoubtedly have contaminated the wine. Before starting with the visual analysis and stirring the wine, smell immediately to identify any defects.

It is not an in-depth analysis of perfumes. We only look for defects. Let’s start again: wine the glass, pouring a small amount of wine. Swirl the glass to make the wine adhere to the entire surface, then throw the two drops of wine and pour the wine. Now there is a fundamental phase of the analysis: how does the wine move?

Does it flow like water? Or is it dense and consistent and moving more slowly? Take note; we’ll talk about it later.

Let’s go ahead and grab the final part of the stem of the glass, tilt the tip of the glass slightly forward so that the light crosses it, and underneath there is the white tablecloth.

A sheet of paper is also acceptable, as long as it is candid: only in this way will you be able to understand the color of the wine.

Now, look at the wine, and if it is clear and has no suspended particles or impurities, we can move on. Indeed, no! Stop, freeze time like this, remain with the chalice in hand, and read.

Visual analysis of red wine

Let’s talk about the most crucial aspect, the color of the wine: let’s start with red wines and the evolution of their pigmentation. When they are young, the color is purple. As they age, they become ruby ​​red and garnet red, and we end up with the most fascinating color: an orange-red that recalls the hue of a brick.

But you wonder why there is this loss of color in red wines? It is straightforward. As soon as they are crushed, the clusters are full of anthocyanins, tannins, and polyphenols.

Let’s say that the color is as dark as possible, at its peak, thanks to all these coloring substances.

Over the years, they decay, fade and oxidize, settling on the bottom.

And this is why you can find residues in red wines.

The wine undresses little by little, letting its garments fall to the ground. Always start to observe from the edge of the glass, where the wine is clearer: the most significant point.

But be careful. This is a rigid pattern, and not always everything is so linear. Some vines give back very dense and dark wines, such as Sagrantino, Syrah, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Lagrein, which, even when they age, retain a very dark and dense pigmentation. Of course, the tone is no longer purplish but becomes a burgundy red color.

On the contrary, wines such as Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo are transparent and drained compared to a sinewy Merlot, and if you observe that a Pinot Noir is very dark and dense, there is certainly something wrong. These wines have finesse and no muscle in their DNA. They have been pumped with anabolic extractions or blended with more colorful wines if they are so charged.

But that’s not all. The colors of the wine are a fan, a rainbow with a thousand shades, and they tell us even more. Fortunately, the knowledge of the production areas comes to our aid, so we never stop studying. Let’s consider the king of Italian wines, Nebbiolo. How could you get new information (for example) from the 6 glasses of Nebbiolo that they put in front of your eyes?

Why do they have different colors, more or less intense? It is a question of age but also of soils, and as you know, the heavy, clayey soils make the wine darker, those drained with a sandy base make the wine lighter.

Therefore, the darkest glass could be a Barolo di Castiglione Falletto, an area known for the tannic power of its wines.

The brighter is probably a Rosso Roero, a place with more sandy soils, and the one so transparent and shiny could be a Boca or a Valtellina Nebbiolo (mountain wines as thin as blades).

Visual analysis of white wine

In white wines, on the other hand, the colors recall the various degrees of ripeness of an apple but forget about the evolution of colors; it is not the right point of view to judge a white wine.

If it is true that white wine, much less rich in anthocyanins and tannins, oxidizes over time, becoming more and more brownish. In that case, the color of white wines reflects the degree of ripeness of the grapes since they are wines made with very short macerations. The greenish-yellow wines come from an early harvest and will undoubtedly be acidic and lean, not rich and opulent.

If the wine is straw yellow or golden, with an intense hue, it means that the wine is sumptuous because the grapes with which it is made were harvested when the polyphenolic ripening was more advanced.

But be careful, don’t be fooled. The color doesn’t have to tell which grape you taste immediately. That’s not what we’re interested in. You don’t have to guess and say it’s a greenish Riesling.

The color must tell you what the wine is made of. Let’s take a Chardonnay as an example. It could be present in both glasses, both in the greenish-yellow glass, and be a fresh and drinkable wine, and in the golden glass, and be a fat wine like a Montrachet that has aged in wood barrels. Remember that observation is a tool, not a justification of your beliefs, be detached.

The color of sweet wines

We then finish with the raisin wines, born from the pressing of grapes which, in addition to the maturation on the plant, have dried and therefore have become darker.

The liquid evaporated, leaving room for sugars and polyphenols. In this case, the wine has a color reminiscent of chestnut honey and amber. The density is very different, these nectars tend to be dense, and you will see them move more slowly in the glass.

The color of fortified wines

If you notice that the color is particularly dark, you are dealing with fortified wines such as Madeira, Marsala, Sherry, and Port wines, where oxidation has played a fundamental role in the aging process.

Ok, well, if you are still alive after this introduction on the color of wine, we can go back to the magical moment when you hibernated with the glass in hand.

Swirl your glass with elegance and carelessness: always be discreet and inconspicuous.

Do not rotate like Thor: a few seconds, we do not want to oxygenate the wine, only to ascertain its density. You will have time later to smell.

The purpose of this operation is to understand how dense the wine is, so observe how fast it moves and the tears that form as it descends. The tears are the drops. The bows are the arches that join the tears.

But what makes a wine thick? First of all, ethyl alcohol, then glycerol, which is another alcohol and is also responsible for the softness of the wine, the richness of polyphenols (to a much lesser extent, however), and finally, sugar.

Empirically, the analysis is straightforward: what are these arches like? Are they fast, wide and bumpy? It means that the wine is not very dense and, therefore, it is low in alcohol or low glycerol (it will not be exceptionally soft), or it does not have many polyphenols.

On the other hand, if the arcs are slow, regular, and petite in size, the wine is heavy and consistent: consequently, you will taste a structured and alcoholic wine.

To train your eye for this test, do some field tests. Mix a few glasses: fill one with water, one with a young and light wine, one golden and consistent, a young purplish red, a tannic red, a red with a few years on the shoulders, and a passito. Swirl the glasses and see how liquids move very differently according to the densities.

You are doing great, be patient. We’re almost done!

Clarity: pay attention to residues

We have talked about the colors of wine and evolutionary stages, but an element that needs to be rethought for a moment is the brilliance of the wine.

Years ago, it was a fundamental requirement on which theories and wars were built.

Today it must be adapted to wines making a comeback, such as ancestral method, pet nat, and Prosecco Colfondo: it is normal that the colors are different, and there may be particles.

Indeed, there are yeasts on the bottom in the refermented bottle, as in unpasteurized beers, it is normal.

On the other hand, a different story for the residue of aged red wines. Here the residues must be eliminated by decanting the bottle. Some particles can escape, but be careful not to “pollute” the wine.

Visual inspection of sparkling wines

We finish in style. Even for Champagne and sparkling wines, the theory does not change. They must be analyzed as white wines.

Only the effervescence created by the refermentation, the perlage, comes into play. In this case, the denser and more numerous the bubbles are, the more carbon dioxide is present in the wine.

But that doesn’t mean it’s a great wine: a sparkling wine pumped with carbon dioxide will be boisterous and grumpy.

What matters is the fineness of the bubbles, and in fact, one must observe the size of the bubbles released to understand how fine they are.