I deleted my wine database a long time ago. I recall tasting 600 different types of wines over 8 month period. This does not necessarily mean that I had 450 liters of wine by myself. It means I tasted 600 different kinds of wines, including the wines from same wine maker but different vintages. 🙂

I am in the process of recollecting my memories now – there are 5 S’s of tasting wines.

1) See
– Seeing is very important as our eyes are generally trained more than nose and mouth.
– For white wines, it starts from ‘green’ colour (young and youthful) to ‘gold’ colour (old and mature).
– For red wines, it starts from ‘purple’ colour (young and youthful) to ‘brown’ colour (old and mature).
– When you pour a wine into a glass, the middle part where the colour is light, it is called ‘core’.
– In comparison, while the colour of core is lighter, the colour where wine contacts the wall of a wine glass is generally darker and it is called ‘meniscus’.
– When you swirl a wine, you will see the wine flows on the wall of glass, it is called ‘tears’ or ‘legs’. If my memory is correct, if the tears of a wine is thick, then it contains a high level of alcohol and vice versa.

2) Swirl
– This is how you test how aromatic wine is – bring it to your chest then chin and finally to nose.
– Why swirl? It is not a gesture of pretentiousness or anything. It is just another way of inducing more flavor/aroma from a wine.

3) Snip
– This is how you experience the intensity of aroma – put your nose right into a glass and inhale so you can draw the aroma as much as you can.
– A wine has a strong aroma, it is called ‘floral wine’ or ‘perfumed’.
– A wine has a less strong aroma, it is called ‘neutral’ or ‘muted’.
– By the way, here is an important factor – not everyone’s nose is the same hence not everyone can recognize all types of aroma.
– Those people who cannot smell a particular element is called ‘anosmia’. Some have allergic reaction to certain aroma and they perceive differently.
– It is generally known that wine which has a strong aroma is usually ‘complex’ which means essentially there are more layers of flavors (e.g. Paddle Pop Rainbow ice cream).

Two more S’s to go – Sip and Savour. I will do them tomorrow morning.