You can read all the books you want on the subject of wine and learn quite a bit along the way, but to truly learn about wine, you must taste wine. No amount of reading can replace the experience you have smelling the wine’s aromas, and savoring its flavors and textures. A combination of the two will do you the most good.

When pouring wine into a glass, don’t fill it more than 1/3 full. This will leave room to swirl the wine in the glass. We’ll discuss the significance of this later.

Tasting wine can be broken down into four basic steps:

• SIGHT – observe the color and brilliance of the wine
• SMELL – first swirl the wine then smell the aromas
• TASTE – the best part but not to be confused with drinking
• SAVOR – after you swallow the wine sit back and savor the experience

 Let's start with SIGHT