How to Taste Wine: 7 Tips From James Suckling

James Suckling is a legendary wine critic in the wine industry. He has tasted more than 200,000 wines in his forty-year career. As a journalist, he served as the former senior editor and European Bureau Chief of Wine Spectator, where he worked from 1981–2010. In 2010, James launched www.JamesSuckling.com, a wine website featuring comprehensive tasting reports, with wine ratings and tasting notes, of wines from around the world.

James Suckling shares his wine-tasting tips so beginners can test all types of wine, from sauvignon blancs and rieslings to bordeaux and pinot noirs. Enhance your wine-tasting experience and better identify different wines with these tips:

1. 1. Cleanse your palate between sips. When tasting for flavors of the wine, you must cleanse your palate by using a spittoon and drinking water. “I regularly cleanse my palate with water. I like to use high-pH water, eight or above . . . . I find that alkaline solution of water cleanses my palate much better and reduces the acid in many wines,” James says. “I also might have some bread, or olives are great with red wine. You want things that refresh your palate.” Cleansing your palate helps your taste buds enjoy more subtle flavors.
2. 2. Do a blind tasting. “When I was starting as a taster in the ’80s, when I studied to be a master of wine, I was always blind tasting,” James says. Tasting blind means not knowing the kind of wine you are tasting—be it a zinfandel, rosé, pinot grigio, or syrah—so that will not influence your tasting. Moreover, tasting blind means not looking at the label; sometimes, a label plays up the fruit flavors or connotes an older wine, which can impact your interpretation of the varietal while tasting.
3. 3. Get the wines to the right temperature to rate. Temperature is critical for wine tasting. “I think it’s important for whites to be between fourteen and sixteen degrees centigrade—not too cold but cold enough to be fresh. If it’s too cold, I’m not going to be able to discern the aromas, taste, and texture,” James says. “The reds I also like a little bit cooler than normal. A lot of people serve their reds at twenty-two or room temperature. I like them around nineteen or twenty.” Using wine glasses with a stem is essential, so you can adequately hold the glass without warming the wine.
4. 4. Pay attention to scent. Articulating scent is an essential tasting skill. In trying one wine during a blind tasting, James notes “some warmth. Aromas of lemon curd, maybe some fresh basil. And I get a sensation of ash. Like, ash from volcanoes; there’s a number of white wines made in Italy that are coming from volcanic soils such as Etna in Sicily, Campania near Naples, and Soave near Verona.” Quality wines give you primary and secondary aromas, sometimes even tertiary ones. Breathe in your wine with your lips slightly parted to anticipate a wine’s flavor and notes. Take a small sip of wine and see if you sense wooden notes from oak barrels, high acid from citrus fruits, or sweetness from red fruits or tropical fruits.
5. 5. Swirl your glass of wine. Getting your wine to move around enlivens its scent. “When you’re tasting, it’s really important to swirl the wine to get some air in there to bring out the wine aromas,” James says. “Also, it’s important not to have too much wine in the glass. I like to have about thirty or fifty milliliters in the glass. Then you can really give it a good swirl.” After swirling, note the viscosity and the tannins, the sediment along the bottom or sides of the glass. Use a new wine glass for each new bottle of wine in a blind tasting.
6. 6. Taste in a clear space. Sometimes, you might taste wine in the cool climate of winemakers’ cellars or a busy room full of people as part of a wine club. To concentrate on the wine’s color and qualities, try to taste the wine in a well-lit, not-too-noisy tasting room. Light is essential when applying the [wine point] scale to red, orange, or white wines. “It’s important that the environment’s clean [and] well-lit,” James says. “I can concentrate on the wines. Sometimes that’s not possible if I’m in a cellar, traveling at dinner, or in a restaurant. But ideally, when I’m tasting, especially blind, it’s important to have a place where I can concentrate.”
7. 7. Use the wine point system. Following the 100-point wine system can help you determine a good wine. The 100-point system is a rating scale for wine quality. Wine scores go up to 100 points, with 100 points going to the best wines. Whether you’re trying a dessert wine or a dry wine, this scoring system helps you better break down and comprehend the quality of a wine. “I think it’s an easy way to communicate about wine,” James says. “It's an easy way for you to understand quality.”

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