April 26, 2020 about wine tasting

I’ve been to a number of wine-tasting classes or events over the many years – and believe me, I have many years.  I’ve learned how the look at the wine, how to properly smell it, how to hold the glass, and how to swirl/gargle the wine in my mouth to detect the proper flavors.  All very nice.  But there are some things that they never tell you that you really should know.  Here are some of the things that they don’t tell you:
Item 1:  serving temperature.  If you’ve followed this website, you already know what this first “things that they never tell you” is, namely, the optimum serving temperature of the wine.  As you can see on the chart shown below, the optimum serving temperature of wines is very much determined by the type of wine.  The great myth is that white wines are served chilled and red wines at room temperature.  As a result, most people serve their white wines too cold and red wines too warm.  It always amazes me that most wineries do not keep their red wines at the proper temperature.  You’d think that they would want to have you taste their wine at the optimum conditions.  After all, they are trying to get you to buy the wine…

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​Item 2:  wine aging.  They never tell you if the wine should be aged any more, or if it is ready to drink.  Sure, the winemaker really can’t say for certain that his wine needs two more years of aging – I don’t really expect that – but he can indicate that the wine needs some aging, or, perhaps of greater importance, how long you can age it before it needs to be drunk.  It is important to remember that for most wines there is an optimum age.  In other words, you can overage a wine.  And yes, white wines change with age as well as reds – reds get lighter, whites darker – and in many cases the whites improve with age.  My wife and I are red wine drinkers, so white wines generally sit for long times in our chiller.  We were pleasantly surprised when we opened up a bottle of Chuparosa Albarino that we had forgotten about for a couple of years.  It was marvelous!  Naturally, the next time we visited there they were out of Albarino.
Item 3:  wine storage.  A corollary to item 2 is how to store the wine.  At least one winery we visited stored their wine at too high a temperature – 74 F – and hence all of it was spoiled.  From what I have read, wine should be stored horizontally at a uniform 55 F (hence the name of the storage company I am associated with – Chateau 55).  Along this same line, I’ve been to two wineries where the wine spoiled in the tasting room (see item 1 above) due to high temperatures.  So, while wine should be good at room temperature for a year or so, just a short time at high temperature can ruin the wine.  OK, that means you need to drink your wine quickly in the summer if you keep your house at 78 F.  I highly recommend a wine chiller.  If you need to buy one, go for the cheaper models.  The expensive units have rigid shelves that are too close together to handle wider bottles.  Just one such bottle will cause you to lose an entire row.  The cheap units (see mine below) have flimsy shelves that can handle the larger bottles if you store them backward.

​Item 4:  orange or brown wine.  They never tell you what a wine looks like if it is spoiled, so I will.  It will have a brown or orange tinge.  If it really gone, it will also be cloudy, with lots of suspended particles.  As noted above, I have run across the orange tinge three times at wineries.  The suspended particle wine was served to me at a friend’s house.  I believe the problem is the rate at which the tannins react with oxygen.  If the tannins in the wine oxidize slowly at low temperatures the solids come out of solution, leaving behind a very smooth wine with great complexity.  If they oxidize quickly or at high temperatures, the solid remain in solution and the wine tastes awful.
Item 5:  other bad wines.  Of course, the wine can turn into vinegar.  This is not very likely as most wines contain sulfites that kill the bacteria that can convert the alcohol into acetic acid (vinegar), and in general the bacteria are not going to get into the wine after it is in the bottle.  Another thing to look for is the cork rotting.  This can occur, and if it does the wine will be bad.  Which of course leads to restaurant wine tasting, i.e., why the server gives you the cork.  I always look at the cork to make sure that it is wet with the wine – the wine has been stored on its side – and to make sure it is not rotted.  Which leads to the stopper issue….
Item 6:  stoppers.  I use the term stoppers rather than corks because some wines do not use cork stoppers.  Alternatives are rubber and screw tops.  Cork is the standard because it allows a small amount of air to leak into the wine, allowing the tannins to age gradually.  Other soft stoppers – rubber, composites (cork or otherwise), or compound units – also serve in the same capacity.  But a screw top does not.  So, looking at the cork can tell you a lot about how long a wine should be aged.  If it has a screw top, it is ready to drink.  Doc Ed looks at the corks from another perspective – how highly the winemaker regards his wine.  If he uses cheap corks it sort of indicates that he doesn’t have a high regard for his wine.  You can read more about corks in our about section.

​Item 7:  phases.  I find it somewhat surprising that I’ve been taught in wine tasting classes how to hold the glass, swirl the wine, properly look at the wine color and clarity, and see to it that the wine reaches everywhere in my mouth, but never about the three “phases” of wine tasting.  These are the attack, the mid-palate, and the finish.  The attack is when the wine first enters the mouth, the mid-palate the taste while it lingers in the mouth, and finish is what you taste after you swallow or spit out the wine.  Actually, I’m not sure about what you taste after you spit out the wine…. 
So there you have it, a summary of the things that you are seldom if ever told when in a wine tasting class.  So, the next time you are tasting wine at a winery, ask what temperature you should serve the wine at.  Ask if the wine needs aging, and how long it should be aged.  Ask to look at the cork.  Oh, and make sure the wine isn’t orange….