Have you ever been to a cellar door with someone who knows a lot about wine (or thinks they do?!) and felt intimidated by your relative lack of understanding as they knowingly swirl, examine and taste their wine? I know I have!

As the wife of a winemaker, whose parents just happen to both be winemakers as well, this was a pretty standard situation for me to find myself in. Sick of feeling like the beginner I was, I took myself off to a wine appreciation course (run by Lester Jesberg, a local wine judge and journalist). Here are the four basic things you need to remember when tasting wine:

Step one: colour

The most important thing to look for is the intensity of the colour. Red wines tend to go from vibrant red all the way through to a deep purple and white wines go from a pale yellow (almost green) to a deep gold. If you tilt the glass away from you slightly (against a white background is best) and look at the edge of the wine, you can get a sense of how old the wine is. The browner a wine is, the older it tends to be.

Step two: smell

Smelling the wine you’re about to taste is really important. I know it can look pretentious, but the simple truth is that a wine’s flavour molecules are found on the surface of the liquid, so maximising the surface area of the wine by swirling the wine in the glass a little before you smell it will actually make a big difference. There are three main things to look for when smelling a wine:

•  Is the smell clean and appealing? If not, it could mean there is a fault with the wine (like cork taint)
• How intense is the smell?
• What does the smell remind you of? Everyone has their own vocabulary for describing what they smell, but some of the descriptions are things like:
  • Floral – quite often used to describe Riesling
  • Raspberry – young Pinot Noir
  • Black cherry – mature Pinot Noir
  • Nettles or Gooseberry – Sauvignon Blanc

Step three: taste

When you take your first mouthful of the wine, hold it in your mouth for just a moment before you swallow. Things to take note of are:

• Is the wine sweet or acidic?
• Is there any bitterness?
• Does the wine taste overly alcoholic?

A key thing here is to try and determine the amount of ‘body’ a wine has. This is usually determined by the wine’s alcoholic strength but also by its extract (which refers to the combination of the wine’s solids, sugars and minerals). The more body a wine has, the less like water it tastes. In other words, you would find that a big, ripe red wine has more body than a young, light white wine. Another thing to look for when tasting a wine is how it feels in your mouth, does it grip or leave a dryness in your mouth or is it silky smooth?

Step four: bringing it all together

The last two things to look at are balance and length. All wines have a combination of sweetness, acidity, alcohol and tannin….were they balanced or did one of them dominate the taste? And finally, how long did the sense of the wine linger after you’d finished tasting? A wonderful wine should leave an impression, so you continue to think about it after you’ve finished tasting. A less impressive wine disappears, so you often can’t remember exactly it is you’ve been tasting.

But most important of all…

Did you like the wine? As long as there isn’t a fault with the winemaking or bottle seal, tasting wine is first and foremost about personal preference. Some people love Sauvignon Blanc, others won’t touch Rosé and, for others, a good Pinot Noir is pretty close to as good as life gets…

So relax, enjoy the tasting experience and get out and enjoy some of the award winning wines Canberra has to offer. There are approximately 35 cellar doors within about a 30 minute drive. For more details, check out www.canberrawines.com.au

Put your newfound skills to the test!

Now you know all there is to know about wine tasting (well, nearly!) why not put your skills at the test at Parlour Wine Room from 2pm this Sunday 2 March.

Parlour recently took part in the Summer of Riesling, celebrating the beauty of the cool climate drop by offering at least six rieslings by-the-glass for the past month. To celebrate the conclusion of the festival, they’re going to be offering up to 60 Rieslings to try (many splendid local ones in there) for a tasting afternoon – all for $15.

The event also coincides with their 2-for-1 Tapas special which runs from 2pm-5pm on Sundays AND the Brass Knuckle Brass Band will be performing from 3pm.