Wine tasting is a great way to socialize with friends while trying out new drinks. However, preparing for a wine tasting can be overwhelming, given the various wine options and food pairings. To help you know what to expect, Pascale’s Wine & Liquors in Syracuse, New York, offers several tips and tricks for enhancing your wine tasting experience.
Although each wine tasting is different, most involve a host guiding the event. This person will give the guests a glass and talk about each wine before pouring. To get the complete experience of tasting wine, consider the following strategies:
Before taking the first sip, make sure you hold the glass by the stem and not the bowl. This technique ensures the heat from your hand doesn’t warm the wine and alter its flavor. You also should swirl the contents a few times to increase the oxygen in the glass and give the wine the best taste.
If you move between different profiles, such as white to red wine, rinse your glass out to prevent flavor mixing. Additionally, take a sip or two of water in between to clean your palette and stay hydrated. Drinking water throughout the wine tasting will help you to pace yourself. If you don’t love the taste of a particular wine, stop tasting after a few sips to stay at a safe pace.
Despite the name, wine tastings are not only about flavor. You also should examine the other characteristics of each drink, including appearance and aroma. Before each sip, smell your wine to identify its signature scents. This technique enhances taste because your olfactory receptors aid your taste buds in detecting nuances in flavor. To perceive aromas accurately, avoid wearing any heavy perfumes or colognes.
Don’t forget to factor color into your tasting experience, as well. Winemakers use different grapes to ferment their wines, and the hues of these fruits dictate the shades of the drink.
By practicing these techniques while you explore the different flavors of wine, you get a full experience at the tasting. And if you haven’t attended a wine tasting before, you can learn more about them by attending one of our fun, free tasting events.
Whether you’re attending a professional tasting or just having a few friends over, a wine tasting is a great way to learn more and develop your palate. A tasting may showcase the wines of a certain region, a single winemaker, or a certain varietal. Specific kinds of wine tastings include:
An introductory tasting can involve simply trying different varietals (wines made from a single type of grape) and learning how each tastes unique. A few common varietals are:
In a blind tasting, only the host knows which wines everyone is sampling. Participants try to identify different wines without knowing the grape, the producer, the region it’s from, or the year of the harvest. A blind tasting is a fun way to test how sophisticated your palate is, and helps you pick up nuances in the wine without preconceived notions of what the flavors should be. For example, the same kind of grape can taste quite different depending on where it’s grown. For a casual blind tasting, have a dinner party where everyone brings a different bottle of wine.
During a vertical tasting, you’ll taste the same wine from the same winemaker, but different vintages (years). The purpose of a vertical tasting is to identify the differences in the wine from year to year. Changes in the weather, climate, the timing of the harvest, and the style of processing can all affect the flavor of a wine. If you have two bottles of the same wine, but one is five years old and the other is 10, they can taste completely distinct.
Depending on the event, the host may provide food or ask you to bring snacks. In either case, you should eat because food helps regulate your body and keeps it from absorbing too much alcohol at once. Certain foods pair well with different types of wine and help to bring out the wine’s distinct flavors. Generally, you don’t want the flavor of the wine to overpower the flavor of the food, and vice versa. The wine and the food should balance each other out. A few wine and food pairings include:
There are limitless options for combining wine with food. Find a pairing that appeals the most to you before attending or hosting a wine tasting. To keep your guests safe, make sure to have a designated driver.
If you are hosting a wine tasting and need to stock up on different wines, turn to Pascale’s Wine & Liquors. We have an extensive selection of well-priced bottles from leading winemakers, such as:
Our knowledgeable and friendly staff members will help you find the best wines for your event, and can even provide you with additional tips and food pairing ideas. We supply wine and liquor for customers in Fayetteville, Manlius, East Syracuse, DeWitt, and Jamesville, NY. For more information or to ask questions, contact us today.
