First tasting of the course.

In each lesson we are tasting six wines. Having now attended lesson two, I think the tastings will tie in with the grapes and regions covered. In lesson one we got a grab-bag of diverse weights and characteristics to illustrate some of criteria of the Systematic Approach (http://wsetglobal.com/documents/ic_sat_22.06.09.pdf).

We were asked to put down what we thought. As it was our first tasting, we had little to gauge our findings against. I shall be writing my results in italics where they differ from the rest of the group, or where they are just way off the mark. I’m going to put the ‘real’ results in roman. Alun, our tutor, gently coaxed us back to reviewing what we had written initially, once we had a few tastings done. ‘Have another sniff of the first one.’ The terms Light – Medium – Pronounced mean little without experience of each one.  A group vote showed what conclusions most of us had arrived at, and then we made a comparison with the textbook answer. This hands-on (or in this case eyes-, nose- and mouth-on) part of the course is really, really good fun.

I’ll put the results from each tasting into the same format as our classnotes. Without repeating parrot-fashion from the course book, I’m going to run through how we get to the results.

Appearance

1. Read the bottle. It seems obvious, but until lesson two I’d no idea how to really understand German wine categorization. For each tasted wine I’ll roll off what I’ve discovered about what the words on the label mean. There are initials and terminology to decode, numbers and dates to consider. It’s all beautifully paraphrased here: http://www.wine-searcher.com/wine-label-eu.htm.

This will tell you what to expect or, at worst, hope to find in the bottle. Also, another number to consider (in lesson one this was done after tasting) is the price tag. Not knowing this first time round, we were not far off the mark going in blind. Once we’re all more experienced, the pricing point will be key. The expectation from this will determine whether it gets 'poor – acceptable – good – very good – outstanding' at Conclusion stage.

2. Pour 50ml into the ISO.

3. Look into the glass. That white background is important here. Is it clear or dull? Any little bubbles (spritz)?

4. Look from above to measure the Intensity. Can you see all the way through, if so this is Pale. Can you see to the stem, if so this is Medium. Can’t see to the bottom of the bowl, then it's Deep.

5. Tilt the glass to 45° to assess the colour.

Nose

1. Swirl! Put the glass on the table; swirl round and round; get the wine moving; get the air through it: this is aeration. If it’s stale-smelling then it’s off. There are many ways wine can be wrong here.

2. Intensity: we’ll learn to measure this with experience.

3. Aroma Characteristics: now this is where Jilly Goolden (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jilly_Goolden) got us all laughing some years back. Now we’re learning this fairly standardised vocabulary to express our findings.

Palate

1. Into the mouth. Keep it at the tip of the tongue to test for Sweetness; I’m really struggling with this. Then spit; an inebriated palate is a clouded palate.

2. The second sip is held in the mouth, with air drawn in over the wine. Exhale through the nose; then draw in more air. Anywhere other than a tasting, this slurping would sound ridiculous, but it's all part of the process. Here we are picking up the following:

Acidity – felt along the sides of the tongue and measured by the amount of saliva stimulated.

Tannin – just as you find with strong tea, this sensation coats the teeth and gets a unique tingle.

Body – this is all about the wine’s sensation, rather than a sensory reaction: the feeling of the wine.

Flavour Characteristics – we’re waxing poetic again as with the Aroma Characteristics.

3. Spit

Length – what lingers on, what stays in the mouth.

As students, we are repeating this to try and pick up all these fine points of tasting.

Conclusions

Sum it up succinctly. This is where we determine whether the wine gets 'poor – acceptable – good – very good – outstanding'.

So this is the how. The next few posts are the tasting notes themselves.