If you’ve been following us for a while, you’re probably now a desperate wine lover. Or shall we say a wine expert? Last time we talked about the favorite grape drink, we went through the four golden rules in terms of wine tasting. These are definitely what one needs in order to get to the basis of oenology - the science of wine. In case you don’t know them yet, read them out here before you jump right into today’s topic!
So, now that we all know some of the foundations of wine knowledge, we can dig a bit deeper, right? You can take the chance of surprising your family and friends by showing how much of a sommelier you are! Without further ado, here are 7 ways to spot the good wine, both for white and red ones:
White wine
- As you know from our previous “Become an Expert” article, the first and one of the most important steps is to see. You have to take a closer look at your glass and observe the shades, the intensity, the sediment (if present) and all these. But how do you recognize a high-quality drink? Well, lighter notes of white wine, for example, usually show that it’s very light in taste. If there’s lots of “gloss” and transparency – the drink is most probably highly acidic.
- What about the colors? Specialists say that the light mat effects mean lighter acidity. On the other hand, white-greenish kinds of shades usually give us information that the drink is young, fresh and flavorful. Mature wine tends to have more of a straw-golden color, while the completely mature one gets amber notes.
- Do you know what the grey or brown “disk” on the outer edges of your wine glass means? Well, it turns out that this might be a signal that the wine is going bad.
- When it comes to red wine sorts, the colors range from crimson to brownish. The young elite wine usually tends to get purple notes, some dark ruby ones or even scarlet with purple shades. In terms of old mature wines, they might be more or less in the orange scale.
- Let’s talk about young wines for a second! For example, young red wine that has a brown color is most likely a drink that doesn’t really deserve attention. It’s either ‘dead’ or the producers have used decayed grapes to make it.
- What you also need to know here is that no visible signs of “flashes” at all might mean the wine is too old. On the other side, the dreggy (but no so old) wine, can be either gone bad or its sediment has risen to the top.
- Another thing you should be observing is the wine’s “tears” that run down the glass walls. These form due to the difference between the vapor from water and alcohol. So, light dessert wines are known to have slightly expressed tears. On the contrary, highly acidic drinks may stand out with more raised ones and they often form beautiful arcades. And of course, a wine that’s gone bad usually has shapeless tears, which resemble some kind of bubbles.
