So you’ve decided you want to learn more about wine. There are a number of ways to do this. You could just get a book and read. You could buy a few bottles, make some food, and invite friends over for a wine party. Or, you could take a class that teaches you the steps to tasting and evaluating wine.  The benefits to the first two options seem pretty obvious, but why bother with the last?

Well, there are a couple of reasons to learn how to “taste” wine. First, using a consistent method to evaluate wine will help you to build a taste memory which can be directly applied (often subconsciously) to future tastings. Second, you’ll strengthen your ability to compare wines objectively, and you’ll also learn to identify exactly what you like or dislike about particular wines. Knowing how to describe what you like or dislike about something can be a powerful tool, especially with wine since its tastes are so varied. This ability will help you to more often discover wines you like and it will also help you to give better advice when your friends come asking you for wine suggestions.

So, how do you “taste” wine?

There are Four S’s to tasting wine: Sight, Smell, Sip, and Savor. Sight refers to our evaluation of the color, intensity, clarity, and things like the presence of bubbles. Smell refers to, you guessed it, anything to do with the nose.  Basically the wine’s aromas and the intensity of the those aromas. Sip refers to using our actual sense of taste (sweet, sour, bitter, salt, umami) and the process of evaluating the texture and weight of the wine. Savor is where we draw our conclusions: is the wine good quality? is it balanced? is it a value?

Over the next few weeks I’ll discuss each of the S’s in more depth. Salut!