Guide to Tasting

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Excerpts from The Guide to Tasting

The Aims of the Tastings

1. Of course we can all taste wine! But as with any interesting subject, knowing a bit more about it – its variety, its specialized use of words, the rules of the game so to speak – will mean that you get even more out of the wines in your glass.

2. I will guide you through specifically selected, benchmark pairs of wines, showing you how to taste, what to notice and how to look for it, and giving you words which will help you perceive the differences.

3. The tasting will illustrate the principal characteristics of wine, and provide illuminating contrasts of flavour, quality and style from round the world. By drawing your attention to these individualities you will discover what to expect from different types of wine and therefore how to appreciate them better.

4. You will end up seeing more ‘patterns’ in wine, and having seen how to think about it, you will be able to make more sense of its great variety and discuss and share its pleasures with more confidence.