Wine evaluation involves observing the color, aroma, and taste of a wine. Flavor characteristics include fruity, buttery, and woody aromas, and wine tasters use techniques like slurping and chewing to fully aerate and taste the wine. Alcohol content greatly influences a taster’s perception of flavor, and wine evaluation is subjective based on personal preferences and experience.
Wine evaluation is a means of classifying a wine based on the taster’s assessment of a number of common characteristics of the wine. Many characteristics of the wine are considered when performing a wine evaluation. Before drinking, the color, aroma and surface tension, often known as legs, are observed. The wine is then tasted to judge its flavor characteristics and mouthfeel.
Common flavor characteristics seen in wine include fruity aromas, buttery aromas, and woody, woody aromas. Many wine drinkers report tasting notes of cinnamon, cherry, peach, or other flavors within a wine. At times, the fruit aromas that appear in wine can appear to taste baked or cooked. Some wines have distinct floral or green flavors, like lavender or green pepper, or sweet flavors like licorice or vanilla. Before tasting in a wine evaluation, the wine is often allowed to exhale or swirl briefly to speed up the aeration process, which is thought to better present the flavor of the wine.
Part of evaluating a wine includes diving into the wine’s flavor to determine whether the taste has similar properties to other aromas, such as piquancy, fruitiness, or woodiness. Many wine tasters close their eyes when tasting wine to give their full attention to the tasting experience. Slurping, chewing, and sloshing wine, while frowned upon at dinner parties, are common techniques used to fully aerate and taste wine.
The amount of alcohol and the intensity of alcohol flavor in wine greatly influence a taster’s perception of the flavor of the wine. In general, wines that are stronger in flavor are better at high alcohol content than wines with a lighter flavor. As a result, red wines tend to have a higher alcohol content than white wines, as they generally have a stronger flavor. High-alcohol wines tend to flow down the glass in pronounced streaks that wine tasters call legs. Another part of evaluating a wine is the aftertaste. After drinking a quality wine, the aftertaste should be long lasting, with a pleasant, moderate quality and slightly perfumed as it rests on the tongue.
Although many wine ratings award points to a wine that gives it a seemingly quantitative analysis, wine tasting isn’t an exact science. Much of wine evaluation is subjective, based on the preferences and experience of the person performing the wine evaluation. Each person who tastes a wine will have a different experience in the flavor characteristics and body of the wine. Although many tasters often agree on the main aromatic characteristics of wine, the subtleties in a wine’s flavor and structure can represent differently for different people.
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