Wine Tasting (Real)

Hughes Parry Hall Oenology Society

Author: Alex McLintock
Date: 1994/12/12
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Wine tasting is not necessarily a snobbish pastime. There are many people who taste beers, coffee, and tea, along with many other foods and drinks. The first thing to understand is that wine tasting is a subjective experience. Whatever you say to describe a wine is OK - if that is what you experience. If you think this particular white tastes of cat's piss then feel free to say it. It might remind you of Domestos or some other household toilet cleaner. Personally, I have never tasted a Gerwurztraminer because the smell is so overpowering that I have never brought a glass of it to my lips. When tasting in a friendly gathering there is no right way to do it. Whatever your friends feel is acceptable goes. But a couple of small tips may be useful.

1. Use glass glasses. Plastic tumblers just degrade the experience, and turn a connoisseurs' event into a debauched piss up [0].
2. Never ever drive home. Always bring a sleeping bag. If you have to leave the house then remember to bring a tent and compass too, because you won't be sober enough to find your way back.
3. Never ever try chatting anyone up. This usually results in an embarrassing situation because the chattee is invariably stone sober and probably thinks you are as pissed as a fart [0].

As a final note, some sort of formal note paper is useful. This usually has slots for the name of the wine, region where the grapes were grown [1], year, grape variety. Most of these you can get from the label. Don't even think of doing blind tastings whilst still a beginner [2]. But more useful from a beginner's point of view are the various standard characteristics of wine:

colour, taste (sweetness, bitterness, acidity), tannin, aroma, body, legs, length, and rim.

To demonstrate let me give to you the tasting notes I made at the last meeting of the Hughes Parry Hall Oenology Group. (No, we couldn't make a good acronym out of that name either.)

Graves L'Hospital, 1992, reminds me of low alcohol wine, yellow, ok. Dr Loosen's Riesling, 1992, white, ok.
Jacob's Creek, 1993, Australia, white, rose water, bored.

I didn't like that much. Thankfully the next bottle was very nice, and I got more fluent in my praise.

Tokaji Aszu, 1988, desert wine, Hungary, Tokaj region, Tesco! Buy this. It was very similar to dilute Commandaria which is a Cypriot desert wine.

Pouilly-Sur Loire, Loire, refreshing (probably because it was very cold), hot day, french, and a couple of other things which were too scrawled for me to read.

The next bottle I missed for some reason. I think my faculties must have been slightly impaired.

Chateau Ramage La Batisse, 1989, Red. Missed.

Friends I know are welcome to the Hughes Parry Hall Wine Society meetings. Please contact me for full details.

[1]	To be pissed, verb, to be inebriated. The American phrase "I am pissed" should be translated into English English as "I am pissed off" unless the American is drunk - which is usually a good state to keep them in. Piss up, noun, an arranged meeting for the consumption of alcoholic beverages.
[2]	Yes, wine is made out of grapes.
[3]	A blind tasting is where you don't see the label.

See also

• Coffee