How to be a Wine Connoisseur
How to be a Wine Connoisseur
A whole group of us just went up to the Hunter Valley for a wine tasting extravaganza. The premise of the trip was to go to a town called Greta, for a friend’s 21st, whose name just happens to be, you guessed it, Greta!
We took a horse and carriage wine tasting tour to sample different wines. It wasn’t until 5pm and the 5th winery that we learnt our entire wine etiquette was totally wrong!!! The guy at the winery was so patient and talked us through all we needed to know if we ever wanted to look like we had any idea about wine – we thought we were already doing this, but apparently no!!! I thought I would share this knowledge, so you don’t look like wanna-be-wine-buffs, but the real thing!
Step 1) Hold the glass right! Either hold it by the stem, or what’s preferable is to hold it with two fingers under the base and your thumb on top of the base. Never hold it by the bowl section (oops!).
Step 2) Get a piece of white paper. Hold your wine glass against the paper to test the colour
Step 3) Tip your glass forwards and examine the ‘legs’ of the wine. These are the drops of wine that run down the glass – the thicker these are and the slower they run, the better quality the wine.
Step 4) Swirl the wine around in the glass – either in the air, holding the glass by the stem or put pressure on the base and swirl it around on the table.
Step 5) Choose your ‘good nostril’ (Haha yes apparently you have a good nostril!), and have a smell of the wine.
Step 6) Sip the wine. Don’t swallow it!!! Swish it around your mouth. If you can, rest it on your tongue and breathe in air over the top of it to release more flavour. Swallow. You should still have flavour all over your mouth, and if you don’t (for example if you can’t taste it at the front of your mouth), that’s known as a “hole in the palette” and the wine is not that great.
Step 7) Drink the rest, or tip it into the tasting jugs. Now get yourself to the Hunter Valley! It’s so close by to Sydney and is a lovely time away. We hit upon a chocolate festival at the Hunter Valley Gardens, and hired out two cottages to enjoy the countryside. I thoroughly recommend!
From: http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/sydneylife/2009/08/
How to be a Wine Connoisseur
We took a horse and carriage wine tasting tour to sample different wines. It wasn’t until 5pm and the 5th winery that we learnt our entire wine etiquette was totally wrong!!! The guy at the winery was so patient and talked us through all we needed to know if we ever wanted to look like we had any idea about wine – we thought we were already doing this, but apparently no!!! I thought I would share this knowledge, so you don’t look like wanna-be-wine-buffs, but the real thing!
Step 1) Hold the glass right! Either hold it by the stem, or what’s preferable is to hold it with two fingers under the base and your thumb on top of the base. Never hold it by the bowl section (oops!).
Step 2) Get a piece of white paper. Hold your wine glass against the paper to test the colour
Step 3) Tip your glass forwards and examine the ‘legs’ of the wine. These are the drops of wine that run down the glass – the thicker these are and the slower they run, the better quality the wine.
Step 4) Swirl the wine around in the glass – either in the air, holding the glass by the stem or put pressure on the base and swirl it around on the table.
Step 5) Choose your ‘good nostril’ (Haha yes apparently you have a good nostril!), and have a smell of the wine.
Step 6) Sip the wine. Don’t swallow it!!! Swish it around your mouth. If you can, rest it on your tongue and breathe in air over the top of it to release more flavour. Swallow. You should still have flavour all over your mouth, and if you don’t (for example if you can’t taste it at the front of your mouth), that’s known as a “hole in the palette” and the wine is not that great.
Step 7) Drink the rest, or tip it into the tasting jugs. Now get yourself to the Hunter Valley! It’s so close by to Sydney and is a lovely time away. We hit upon a chocolate festival at the Hunter Valley Gardens, and hired out two cottages to enjoy the countryside. I thoroughly recommend!
From: http://blogs.usyd.edu.au/sydneylife/2009/08/
How to be a Wine Connoisseur
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