How To Taste Wine With Bob Paulinski, Master Of Wine

Today I'm in Northern California and we're talking about how to taste wine. So whether you're in some sort of formal wine education program, maybe you're going to be visiting some wineries in the not too distant future, maybe you just want to know a bit more about wine, this is the place for you. I'm also going to share a little bit about what I used as I made my way through the Master of Wine program. I think the first question out of the gate is, why is wine tasting even a thing? Well, look, it's obviously an agricultural product, it's fermented, but beyond that there are hundreds of compounds in a glass of wine. These are things that are going to impact the way it looks, the way it smells, the way it tastes. On top of that, you've got all these other variables that come into play. Where a vineyard is located, how it's planted, what it's planted to, how a wine is made, how it's aged, how it's stored, etc. It goes on and on. And then with each vintage, the deck gets reshuffled again. So there's loads of moving pieces there. We can get started into this. If you have a glass of wine in front of you, that would be great. This is going to be an exercise for your senses. And what we're going to show is, as you progress through, you're going to use each of your senses and that is going to give you a full story of what that wine is all about. So what I'm using is, I've poured myself a glass of Duraguti Cabernet Franc from Mendoza, Argentina, 2018. Great stuff. It's under $20. If you can find it, pick it up. It's wonderful. But whatever you have in your glass will work. So in order to make things a bit more manageable from the start, what I did is, when I went through the Master of Wine program, I looked at every wine in the same sort of manner. It was almost kind of methodical. And what I did is, I looked at wines in terms of its primary character. That was first. And what I mean by that is, the primary character are those attributes that are directly attributed to that fruit in the vineyard. So sometimes you'd have a wine that would have a very distinctive fruit character or some sort of spice or herbal character that would just jump out of the glass. That is primary. And those primary characteristics are typically apparent in the wine or most apparent in the wine when it's fairly youthful. Beyond that, you get into something called the secondary characteristics. And the secondary characteristics are those things that are linked to the winemaking process itself. So for instance, if you had a wine that was aged in oak, that oak is going to change the wine. It may change the color. It most definitely will change the aromatics. It'll change the taste of that wine. So that would be the secondary characteristic. The third would be tertiary. And tertiary is attributed to bottle age, basically time. As the wine ages, it's going to change. Every wine has a life cycle. Depending on the type of wine it is and how it's made, that cycle may be very very short, really long. But eventually these tertiary characteristics will start to come into play. Some of them can be a positive, some not so much. Now we're going to be using four senses. And the first that we're going to discuss is sight. So with this glass of Cab Franc that I poured, I filled the glass to its broadest part of the bowl. I have a white piece of paper down on the table. And if you hold the wine at a 45 degree angle and you look down into it, you'll see that in this case the core is relatively deep. It's got kind of a purpley red color, which is typical for this grape variety and for a wine of this age. And as you progress out to the rim of the glass, it still has that purpley red color. Maybe a little bit of fade, but it still has that youthful look. If this wine were some other grape variety, maybe like Petit Verdot, Cabernet Sauvignon, oftentimes you're going to find it's going to have more density. It's going to have a deeper extraction of color. Something like Pinot Noir, something like Tempranillo, for instance, fairly thin-skinned grape varieties, generally you're going to get a whole lot less color. So that's going to give you some clue as to what's going to come when you actually go through the rest of the evaluation. Now with the next piece, with smell, you give the wine a bit of a swirl. And what this is going to do is really help to release the aromatics in that wine. It helps to volatilize the aromas. And the induction of air is the thing that just kickstarts that. So when you give it a swirl, it helps to bring air into the wine. The other thing it does is the wine clings to the side of glass. And as that wine falls back down into the deep part of the bowl, in effect what you've done is you've increased the surface area. And increasing that surface area, again, is going to help to bring out more of that aroma. Your nose is going to be right at the top where the glass narrows. And this is the area where you're going to get the real full range of those aromatics. And again, some of these will be primary characteristics, some secondary. In wine like this, there's not much in the way of tertiary. But in a couple of years, we would start to see some of those elements that indicate a wine that's been aged. Now the next piece is the taste. And I want you to taste the wine in two different ways. One is simply take a little bit of that wine into your mouth and do nothing with it other than hold it on your tongue for a second or two and then swallow. And you'll notice that, yeah, you can taste the wine and you get some of the character from it. But it's kind of muted. It's almost like tasting the wine when you have a head cold. So you know it's wine. You know there's a lot going on there. But you're not really detecting a whole lot of it at this point. If you try the other experiment and do the exact same thing, but this time draw a little bit of air into your mouth through that wine, you'll see it's a completely different experience. And when you do that, it doesn't take much air. But when you do that, it'll fill your nasal cavity with that air. All of those aromas, all of those flavors now come together since your sense of taste and sense of smell work in unison. So it really does help to like bring out that full range of what that wine has to offer. Now also I've seen plenty of videos where people will take a bit of wine into their mouth and they're working it like mouthwash and they're doing all these sorts of crazy gymnastics with it. Look, I think it's a bit weird. Also I don't think it's all that helpful, especially with red wines. And I know there's some people that'll hear this and won't agree. But look, with my 40 years in this business, I kind of hold this near and dear. But if you really overwork that wine and you draw too much air in and you're kind of working it like mouthwash, it really does highlight the tannin and the astringency. And if you're tasting a lot of wines, I think it's going to actually decrease the value or decrease the enjoyment that you get out of tasting several wines. So for me, I avoid that. And then the final thing, which I think a lot of people don't consider, is the sense of touch or that tactile impression when you drink wine. Wine has an impact on your sense of touch. If you have a wine that's 15% alcohol, for instance, it's generally going to have more weight on your palate versus something that has 12% alcohol. If the acidity is very high, you're going to feel the impact of that on the sides of your tongue. And think of acidity with wine. It's a lot like acidity in food. The acidity is what keeps the wine vibrant and fresh and bright. You also can detect tannin on your palate as well. And tannin is primarily derived from the grape skins. It can also come from the seeds, the stems, from oak barrels. But it's what provides that astringency. And that astringency sometimes can almost have a tactile impression, like a slightly gritty or almost like a fine sandpapery kind of characteristic on your palate. That may not sound all that appealing, but it actually does contribute something really valuable to the wine, especially if you're having foods that have a lot of red meat that may have some fat to it. The tannin will cut right through that. It keeps the palate fresh. You can then go back. You can drink more of the wine and enjoy the food for its full-on maximum. Also, think of tannin. Tannin is a bit like, oh, if you had a cup of Earl Grey tea, for instance. That tannin that you'll find in the tea is quite similar to the tannin that you'll find in wine. So by putting together all of those senses, the sense of sight, smell, taste, and touch, you're going to get the full range of what that wine has to offer. So this is very much what will happen in wine competitions. It's commonly used in labs and wineries. And just if you're sitting around at home with some friends and you're drinking wine, it'll help you to really bring out the full character of what that wine has to offer. So you've hung around to the end of the video. I greatly do appreciate that. Please do hit the like button. This really does make a difference. Subscribe. Hit the bell. You'll know when the next video comes out. Also, post your comments down below. I'll read everything that's posted, and it would be really appreciated if you share your thoughts and opinions. Until next time, say cheers. Bye-bye. I'll be back somewhere in the wine world. We'll see you again.