Wine Tasting: How to?

Last week I saw a news story about this weekend's Mother's Day winery tasting held in Spokane. If you have never been you should go sometime it is a great event although brace yourself for huge crowds.

In the story they interviewed Barrister Winery's Greg Lipsker who with his partner Mike White produce fabulous award winning wines and are two of the pillars of our vibrant local wine industry, and, in short, they are great guys who support many local charities and do a great job of extending winery hospitality and educating their guests.

In the interview Greg simply said the event is designed to be fun and not get into some of the snobbery that can be associated with wine tasting.

In short we agree with him whole heartedly. Wine tasting whether it is at a winery like Barrister or a shop like the Dinner Party should accomplish two things; it should be fun and it should help you identify wines you like to drink on a more or less regular basis.

However that leaves two questions out there for you as consumers; what should you be looking for and how do you identify those characteristics?

As I have said many times, nothing I or any other wine professional says can change a wine from one you don't like into one you do. That decision is always made by you and every other consumer, so while a "how to taste wine" article may seem a little silly here are some things that will help you identify wine characteristics.

Tasting is a bit of a misnomer since your palate only picks up four tastes: Sweet, sour, salty and bitter. Wine smelling would be more accurate as most of the wine flavors come from your olfactory senses and not taste. Somehow though wine smelling just does not sound very good, which leads us to all of the swirling and slurping that goes on at a wine tasting.

Wine changes a lot once the cork is pulled or the top twisted and air is introduced to the bottled wine. Thus the swirling. Swirling the wine in the glass more rapidly introduces oxygen to the wine and causes the aromatics to develop into the fruit and other flavors or smells that influence your opinion of the wine.

Swirling can be a bit tricky in itself leading to spilling even for the most seasoned tasters. Best advice is to keep the glass on the table top or counter when swirling giving you added stability.

When it is time to take that first smell be sure and get your nose down into the glass and you will smell more and be able to identify more of the wine profile and flavors.

Next comes the first sip. Draw a small amount of wine on to your palate and while you have it in your mouth slurp or pull air over the wine. First couple of times I tried this I did it at home to avoid the dribble embarrassment, but eventually I got the hang of it.

What you will find though is even more flavors making their way through your nose and into the olfactory senses of your brain as you get more of a sense of the fermented grape juice.

Next up is the time to swallow. I will tell you that judging all of the wines for the North Idaho Wine Rodeo and tasting and evaluating over 25 wines per week to place on our shelf, I rarely spit. I quite simply have a difficult time identifying the tastes, flavors and character of the wine that comes from the back palate and finish without swallowing.

The idea here is to let the wine linger as you swallow and really pay attention to what comes from it at the end.

All of these steps will help increase your experience with the wine and aid you in identifying the wines you like.

A couple of final pointers though on tasting wine and getting home safely; even if you do spit the wine out rather than swallowing it you will still end up consuming some alcohol albeit a small quantity.

The best advice to ensure a safe trip home is to not mistake wine tasting with wine drinking.

The other way to accomplish a worry free experience at a winery or shop tasting is to have a designated driver, especially at events like the Mother's Day one in Spokane or the tastings at the North Idaho Wine Rodeo where so many wineries are represented it is better to not even chance it.

If there is a topic you would like to read about or questions on wine you can email George@thedinnerpartyshop.com or make suggestions by contacting the Healthy Community section at the Coeur d'Alene Press.

George Balling is co-owner with his wife Mary Lancaster of the Dinner Party - a wine and table top decor shop in Coeur d'Alene by Costco.

George is also the managing judge of The North Idaho Wine Rodeo, and writes frequently for the online version of Coeur d'Alene magazine at www.cdamagazine.com

His articles can also be found on the blog at www.thedinnerpartyshop.com.