Drinking Wines

No beverage can stir up the senses, curiosity and imagination as wine. Unlike beer or many distilled spirits, a particular wine will smell and taste different every year it?s released. That?s because wine is mostly an expression of soil, weather, place — what the French refer to as terroir. It?s a reflection of what happened during a particular growing season, as well as the decisions the vineyard manager and winemaker made that year.

All these factors can make tasting wine a very exciting and rewarding experience, especially in a group setting. It?s always interesting to hear others? opinions on a wine: what they smelled, what they tasted, what they felt.

If you?ve always wanted to host a wine tasting in your home — or maybe are just interested in finding ways to learn more about wine — then read on. Below are six creative ways to learn more about (and enjoy!) this magical beverage with friends and loved ones.

Basic Wine Tasting

A basic wine tasting can be a unique and fun way to entertain guests. However, they are more enjoyable and rewarding when you limit the size of the group to no more than about 12 guests. Once you get much bigger than this it?s difficult to manage this format.

Keep it simple by deciding on a theme (say, Australian Shiraz, Red wines from the Rhone region of France, or whatever suits you). Set a price floor and a ceiling and have each guest bring one or two bottles that fit the theme.

Make sure to first number each bottle. That will help those taking notes keep track of what they?re tasting. Pour only one wine at a time and give your guests a chance to fully appreciate each one. Before moving on to the next one, try to create some discussion about the wine and even consider handing out scoring sheets (or at least pen and paper). This will allow everyone to record their impressions, along with each wine?s region, grape varietals, price and so on. Move to the next bottle only when everyone has had a chance to appreciate and discuss the previous one.

Blind Wine Tasting

This type of tasting follows the same steps as the basic tasting described above, except that the identity of each wine is not revealed until after everyone has tasted and evaluated all the wines. To do this right, you?ll have to open each bottle first and also fully remove the foil cap (to prevent it from revealing its identity). Then, put each bottle inside a brown paper bag and tie it at the end with a heavy-duty rubber band.

When you?re ready to start tasting, take the wines to the dinner table and number each bag clearly with a marker. Follow each step in the basic wine tasting description above — but again, don?t reveal the identity of any wine until ALL wines have been evaluated.

I find this to be the most intriguing and most challenging format — but also the most fun! It?s amazing how much our prejudices and preconceptions (including the look of a bottle?s label bottle or the price paid) have on our evaluation and perception of a wine. Blind tasting is the only truly objective way to judge.

Wine Party

Again, the formats above work very well with groups of 4 ? 12 people. Once your group gets much larger, a basic tasting becomes too difficult to manage. So what can you do if you?d like to have a wine tasting but have too many guests to make it work? Simple: Have a ?wine party.?

The best wine parties are the kind where you keep things casual and laid back, yet still ask your guests to follow certain rules. For example, you could set a theme such as ?wines from Spain,? and have every individual bring a wine from that country (each couple should bring 2 wines; better to have too much than not enough!). As with the other tastings, set a floor and a ceiling: $15 to $30, for example.

For those that won?t know how to pick a good selection in this price range, suggest they go to a merchant and let an experienced sales clerk know what the wine is for. With this kind of guidance (country or varietal, as well as a specific price range), most merchants will do a good job recommending a wine for the occasion.

As the guests arrive, line up the bottles so that duplicate wines are together (invariably, there will be some duplicates. But that?s OK; more wine for everyone!). You can provide your guest with a tasting sheet if you?d like and use the scoring suggestions outlined earlier. If you?d like to keep it even more informal, skip the score sheet.

?Around the World? Wine Party

Another variation on this theme is to host an ?Around the World? wine party. This is typically the way to go if you?re looking to host a party with 30 or more guests — and a terrific idea if you?re having a ?house warming? party with a lot of guests (you?ll see why in a moment). Follow the same guidelines recommended here, but have your guests bring a wine from any country outside of the U.S.

Then, set up different tables around your living area, each of them ?hosting? a different country and its wines. Have a stack of wine scoring sheets and pens available on each table, and as an option, number the wines with Post-it-Notes for better tracking on the scoring sheets.

If it?s a house warming party, set up a tasting area in each room. That way, your guests can check out every room in your new home.

By opening up the theme to ANY wine from ANY country outside of the U.S., you lower your chances of having duplicate wines, which is the main reason I like to suggest this format when the guest list is large.

Wine Tasting Dinner

Another variation of the traditional wine tasting discussed earlier is to have a 3-course (or 4- or 5-course) dinner and serve a different wine with each course.

You can ask each guest to bring a specific type of wine to match each of your courses. For example, you can ask one couple to bring a Pinot Grigio to have as an aperitif, another couple to bring a Sauvignon Blanc to pair with the first course, another to bring a wine from Rioja to have with the main course, and lastly someone to bring a dessert wine to have with, of course, dessert.

A nice touch would be to have a final cheese course (after dessert) and provide the cheeses and wine(s) yourself.

Tasting wine with friends and family can be fun and educational. Fortunately, there?s really no right or wrong way to conduct one. So whatever you do, keep things lively and relaxed. Keep some structure to the event without getting too serious and you?ll be sure to create a memorable event for all your guests.

Ed Gandia is a wine writer based in Marietta, GA. He is the author of the ?The Bargain Hunter?s Wine Shopping Guide? (http://www.BestWineBargains) — an eBook that teaches wine lovers a simple method to find the best, most consistent $10-and-under wines sold in the U.S.

It can be amusing sometimes to read the labels on the back of wine bottles… you’ll see wine given some very interesting and amusing descriptions, for example: This wine has an aroma of fresh citrus, pear and orange blossom OR This wine has a hint of white truffle chocolate, spearmint, spice and black pepper flavours.

While I always enjoyed a good wine, I never quite understood those wine descriptions. I used to wonder where those descriptions came from. How could these flavours come from fermented grapes?

That is, until I learnt how to drink a wine so that I could fully appreciate its aromas and flavours. Now I understand that by smelling and tasting a wine in the correct way I can smell the aroma and taste the flavours described on the label. You just need to open your mind to it!

Most people associate the look-smell-taste wine drinking style with wine judges/experts. But with a small amount of knowledge and by following their example, you can easily improve your experience of wine. Drinking the wine is only a small part of the experience!

Here are 3 simple steps you can use to maximise the enjoyment of your wine drinking experience:

Step 1: Look

It’s important to have a good look at the wine. If the wine doesn’t look good you may not want to drink it. Make sure you’ve got good light, a white background and clean glassware.

White wine should be clear and sparkling with no sediment or haze. The colour of the wine will be affected by the grape variety, whether or not it was aged in oak, the sugar content and bottle aging. But generally as it ages, the wine becomes darker in colour; changing from straw, to yellow, to dark yellow, to gold.

The colour of red wine varies depending on the grape variety. It will also depend on the quality of grapes; length of time the wine was fermented with the skins and bottle aging. Young red wine is generally a vibrant purple colour and as it ages the colour will change from plum, cherry, brick red, to tawny.

Step 2: Smell

The smell of a wine can be very interesting and can be almost as enjoyable as drinking the wine!

When you pour a wine, only fill the glass to a third full. The best wine glasses are those that close in towards the top to trap the aroma. Hold the glass by the stem, and give the wine a swirl to coat the glass with wine. This will release the full aroma. Then, stick your nose into the glass, breathe in and concentrate on what you can smell.

When you first start doing this, you may want to compare what you smell with the winemaker’s description on the label. It’s interesting that you really can smell the aroma as described by the winemaker, such as fresh dark cherries and plum, spice, white pepper and liquorice.

Step 3: Taste

Sip your wine. Hold it in your mouth for a moment, and then swallow. Look for:

- Fruit flavours or other recognisable tastes
- Wood flavours: has the wine been fermented in oak?
- Nutty flavours: from yeast aging
- Acid tastes: which contributes to the crispness of the finish
- Palate length: does the flavour start big and then drop away in the middle palate? Or is it long and lingering?
- Astringency: can you detect involuntary ?puckering? of your mouth as the tannins hit your tastebuds?

As you can see there is a little more to drinking and enjoying wine than simply swallowing, especially if you want to gain the maximum pleasure. Try the look-smell-taste method and compare the difference.

This is also a great topic of conversation at a dinner party… see who can pick the aroma and taste that the winemaker suggests on the label!!

The bottom line though is: drink the wine that you enjoy. The best way to find out what wine you enjoy the most is by tasting as many wine varieties as you can and make a note about what you thought.

Article by Jodie Smith of Boutique Wineries a leading online cellar door offering uniquely different wines from over 120 boutique wineries. It makes finding the hard to get wines of Australia?s small wineries easy.

If you enjoyed this article, please feel free to forward it to others, make it available from your site or post it on forums for others to read. Just make sure that this paragraph and URL are included. For more information, tips and articles on wine, Australian boutique wine reviews and wine ratings, visit The Wine-Tasting Secrets Newsletter at Online Boutique Wine Shopping in Australia

The moment you pull that cork, wine comes in contact with air. And once that happens, the oxidation process begins. If you?re not planning on consuming all the wine in one sitting, you need to know how to store the remaining wine so it won?t go bad.

Oxidation is the chemical reaction that occurs when oxygen comes in contact with wine. At first, oxidation is a good thing; it helps ?open up? the wine, revealing different facets of its bouquet and aroma. However, after a couple of hours, further oxidation is a bad thing. It starts to damage the wine and will eventually ruin it.

Many of us have had the experience of leaving an unfinished bottle out all night without the cork back on. The difference in flavor and aroma the next day is striking and unmistakable. Even if re-corked the next day, the wine will usually taste flat, ?raisiny,? and unpleasant — all a product of the oxidation process.

So how do you preserve an open bottle of wine when you don?t want to (or can?t) drink the whole thing in one sitting? There are only four reliable methods of preserving the remaining wine, some more reliable than others:

1. First, put the cork back on and put the wine in the fridge. The oxidative process slows down dramatically in cooler temperatures. This is a very easy — and a fairly reliable — method when you don?t have any other choices. Certainly much better than leaving an open bottle on the kitchen counter overnight.

2. A second option is to transfer the remaining wine to a half-bottle (375ml) and put it in the fridge. Doing this eliminates most of the air that would normally come in contact with the wine in a standard-size bottle (750ml). While more effective that method #1, this involves carefully transferring the wine over, which is only practical to do with a funnel.

3. A third alternative is to pump out the air in the bottle with a ?wine pump.? You can get a wine pump virtually anywhere these days, even in stores such as Target, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Linens and Things. These pumps are fairly reliable, but I?ve found they work best if you also stick the bottle in the refrigerator after pumping out the air (no pump can completely remove the air from the bottle). Otherwise, you?ll still notice a slight difference in taste the next day, and a more pronounced difference the following day and beyond.

4. Use a wine preserver spray. This, by far, is the most effective and dependable method of keeping wine fresh. While these sprays cost about $10 a bottle, they are extremely reliable and effective. In my opinion, this is the only way to store opened wine. The spray is actually a blend of harmless inert gasses (gasses that don?t react with wine), which keep the wine from spoiling. Spraying the inside the bottle displaces the oxygen already present and leaves a blanket of inert gas over the wine. The amazing thing is, the gas will preserve the wine for days, even weeks! Try a can and see for yourself. Look for them at many local wine shops and online by searching for brands such as ?Private Preserve.?

What about wine that?s already spoiled? Whatever you do, don?t dump it down the drain. Instead, keep it in the fridge (with a cork on) for recipes that call for a little wine. I always keep a bottle of ?spoiled? wine in the fridge for this purpose. And when a sauce calls for a little wine, I don?t have to use the good stuff.

Another idea is to pour it in ice trays and freeze it. And again, when you have a recipe that calls for wine, break off a few ?wine cubes? instead.

Some may argue that it?s best to use fresh wine when cooking. I say do what you?d like. But in my house we never waste a drop of wine!

Ed Gandia is a wine writer based in Marietta, GA. He is the author of the ?The Bargain Hunter?s Wine Shopping Guide? (http://www.BestWineBargains.com) — an eBook that teaches wine lovers a simple method to find the best, most consistent $10-and-under wines sold in the U.S.

A fun way to learn more about different wines?especially those you normally wouldn?t buy on your own?is to host a wine tasting in your home. Here are a few tips for a fun and educational wine tasting:

* First, decide how many people you?re going to invite. The size of your tasting will probably determine the setup you use and maybe even your tasting?s theme.

* Second, decide on a theme. You could choose a country, a region within a country, or a varietal (a grape). For example, wines from the Southern Rh?ne, or maybe New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs, or red wines from Chile. You could even settle on an ?ABC? theme: ?Anything but Cabernet? or ?Anything but Chardonnay.? However, I?ve found that the narrower the theme, the more interesting and fun the event.

* Third, decide who will provide the wine and the food. You may chose to stick to cheese, crackers and provide those. And if that?s the case, you could ask your guests to each bring a bottle or two of wine (based on your specified theme).

* Lastly, determine how formal you want the even to be. In other words, will you be pouring one wine at a time and then encouraging comments and observations from everyone? Or will this be a more casual event that merely has a wine theme and no ?wine talk?? There are no rules; it?s completely up to you.

Here are some ideas for you to consider:

Your Basic Wine Tasting

* Invite just a handful of friends and ask each couple to bring a bottle of wine. Decide on a theme?Syrah, for example?and set a price ceiling of, say, $30 and a floor of $20. The country of origin is up to the buyer.

* Go to the market and buy a variety of quality cheeses. Consult with the cheese specialist. Let her know the type of wines you?ll be serving. Pick up a couple of baguettes, some olives, a decent olive oil, some sliced cured ham (prosciutto, for example), and some gourmet crackers. Also, pick up a bottle or two of a Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, or Ros? so you have something to serve while the guests arrive.

* Give each of your guests a piece of paper and a pen. You may even want to have scoring sheets prepared to help everyone evaluate the wines. But don?t let that intimidate anyone. Make sure your guests know there?s no right or wrong here, and it?s just for fun anyway. Some simple suggestions on how to judge and score wine:

- Color: You?ll want to make sure to look at the wine?s color by tilting the glass about 45 degrees and looking at the liquid against a white background (such as your tasting sheet). Pay particular attention to the rim of the liquid. That?s where the true color will show. The deeper the color, the younger and more concentrated the wine will probably be. Amber, brick-like tones in a red wine are typical indicators of some age. Deep, golden colors in a white typically indicate richness and concentration. Don?t worry about scoring for color. We?ll save the scores for the other elements.

- Aroma: Make sure to give the wine a good swirl. Then, stick your nose in there and take a deep breath. Swirl again and try this one more time. Thoughts on aroma? What do you detect? Write it down. Then, give the aroma a score from 1 ? 10, based on YOUR opinion, not others?.

- Flavor: After a few swirls and sniffs, it is time to taste the wine. Start with a small sip and hold it in your mouth?on top of and around your tongue?for a few seconds. Swish the juice inside your mouth. It?s also helpful to open your mouth a bit and lightly clamp your top teeth on your lower lip. This creates a very small opening through with you can suck air in rapidly, letting the air run through the wine, and releasing more of the aroma and flavor inside your mouth.

Think about the wine for a few seconds before you swallow. How?s the acidity? The fruit? The tannins? The body? Does it seem balanced? What does it taste like? Does it remind you of something: nectarines, strawberries, vanilla, figs, currants, blackberries? Use your imagination and don?t worry about what others may think; there are no right or wrong answers here. Give the wine a flavor score between 1 ? 10.

- Overall Impression: Finally, I like to assign a score based on my overall impression of the wine. Think about what you?ve just tasted. How impressed are you with its overall quality? With the balance and finish? With its overall character? Did it ?wow!? you? Was it disappointing? Did it seem flabby or spineless? Give it a separate score between 1 ? 5 based on this overall impression.

Now, add up your scores and multiply the total by four. This will give you an overall score based on a 100-point scale.

Tip: Ask everyone to keep their scores secret until everyone has fully evaluated the wine and added up their scores. This will ensure everyone writes down their honest opinion. Compare scores with others (this is always fun) and see how you and the others judged the wine. Repeat this process with the other wines.

Wine tastings can be a ton of fun and a great way to meet interesting people. And guests tend to remember these get-togethers for years. I have friends who still tell me how much fun they had 5 or 6 years ago at a wine tasting party I helped them organize. Follow these tips and you, too, will have friends talking about your ?legendary? tastings for years to come.

Ed Gandia is a wine writer based in Marietta, GA. He is the author of the ?The Bargain Hunter?s Wine Shopping Guide? (http://www.BestWineBargains.com) -? an eBook that teaches wine lovers a simple method to find the best, most consistent $10-and-under wines sold in the U.S.