Tasting wine is easy:  if you can taste food, you can taste wine, for the senses of smell and taste that enable you to capture the aromas, flavours, spices and texture of food are the same as you use for wine.  But there is a difference between tasting and drinking, which is Paying Attention. 

After the first experience or two, you don't need to pay attention to the taste of Coca Cola or of Kingfisher Beer, for the taste will always be the same.  But the taste of wine, of different colours, from different grapes grown in different parts of the world, is almost never the same and each glass will more likely than not be a new experience.  So to get the most out of the experience, just like tasting a new dish at table, you have to follow certain steps which, in a very short time, will become a matter of habit.  The four steps are:  Appearance/Colour; Nose/Aroma; Palate/Taste; Aftertaste/Conclusions.

Appearance/Colour

Use a clear glass, as a coloured glass will obscure the wine's colour and it is from the colour that you judge a wine's age and potential flavours.  White wines gain colour as they age, while red wines lose colour.  A young dry white will be pale and lively, a mature sweet white will be golden and rich looking:  a light red will be light ruby, a fuller-bodied red will be deeper ruby.  All wines should be limpid clear and if they are cloudy, the wine is faulty and will not be clean to taste.


Nose/Aroma

Your sense of smell is the most important element in assessing a wine, because the aromas follow on from the nose to the palate.  Put your nose just above the rim of the glass, even into the glass - a wine glass should never be filled to the brim - and give one or two sharp sniffs and you will get an impression of fruitiness, especially from a young wine.  For a white wine, this could be citrus, melon, peach, or even banana. For a red wine, the berry and currant fruits will dominate.  As the wine matures, this fruitiness, which comes from the grape variety, will be replaced by secondary elements such as biscuits for whites and leather for reds.  The variety of aromas are literally endless, but they are nonetheless easy to perceive.

Palate/Taste

As the wine enters your mouth, the tip of the tongue will pick up sweetness, the sides will detect acidity and the back of the tongue bitterness.  These are sensations, not flavours, and to experience the flavours, just as you do with food,  the wine should be "savoured", rolled around the mouth, almost chewing it as you would a piece of meat.  At this point the palate will feel the weight (light, medium or heavy) and texture of the wine, while the nose will reveal the actual flavours, literally the "aromatic palate". 


Aftertaste/Conclusions

As you swallow the wine, you will be able to judge the relative sweetness and acidity, its softness or hardness, persistence and balance.  The key element that will make you wish to take a second sip is balance.  A wine that is too sweet, too acidic, too soft, or too hard is unbalanced.  To be enjoyable, wine should present a flow of information from the eye, the nose and the palate, to finish on a note of pleasant harmony. 

To get the most out of wine, follow this step-by-step approach.  Very soon it will become second nature.