Before you taste the wine, you should first swirl the wine in the glass. Why do we  swirl the wine? To allow oxygen to get into the wine. Swirling releases the esters, ethers, and aldehydes which combine with oxygen to help release the aromatics of the wine.

Smell is the most important part of wine tasting. Our olfactory equipment is incredibly sensitive. You can only perceive four tastes – sweet, sour, bitter, and salt – but the average person can smell over 2,000 different scents, and wine has over 200 of its own! The fact is, that wine smells of more than just grapes.

Analysis of its volatile components has identified the same molecules that give many familiar objects their distinctive scents. The world of smell is vast and bewildering and the “language” used to describe the aromas in wine is only limited by our imagination.

• Step One : swirl the wine
• Step Two : put your nose in the glass and sniff
• Step Three : assess aromas  and winemaker’s influence (fruit, floral, spices, vegetal, use of oak, intensity, complexity)

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