Wine Tasting Notes and Evaluation

Wine tasting notes are usually made to help us evaluate a wine to see whether we like it or to evaluate how a wine is progressing in aging. But what kind of notes do you want to make? What are you looking for when tasting a wine? Here are a few pointers, although there are no hard and fast rules.

1) The nose knows: nose, bouquet, aroma, or fragrance

These are all terms that describe how the wine smells to you. Does it remind you of a flower scent? Then it can be called "floral". It may be "grassy" like a freshly mown lawn. Or it may come across as fruity, like a cherry or strawberry or melon might smell. Imagine yourself in nature and see if the scent is something growing around you, like eucalyptus. Or imagine yourself in the produce section of your local supermarket. Does the wine make you feel like you're standing near a bushel of pears or oranges? Or does it take you somewhere else in the grocery store, i.e. reminding you of nuts, chocolate, coffee or butterscotch? Or it may just smell like grapes! Write down whatever associations, if any, you sense. If it helps to write down "Smells like vinyl car seats on a hot day" then write that down. The basic idea is to help you remember the scent.

Some varieties of wine grapes are known for their aromatic aromas. Viognier, for example, usually has a very floral scent reminiscent of exotic flowers like gardenia, freesia, or jasmine often with a hint of ripe peaches or apricots. Chardonnay, on the other hand, is often described as appley, nutty, toasty, and sometimes pear-like or even pineappley depending on where it is grown. In general, winegrapes have a tendency to pick up the flavors of the soil and whatever is in the surrounding environment as they grow in the vineyard. So you may encounter the scent of roses, jasmine, violets or eucalyptus and it will not be your imagination.

Anything that tastes moldy or like a chemical is an off-odor. These are BAD odors that usually mean the wine has undergone some undesirable chemical or microbiological change. Forget that wine! Dump it.

Sometimes you will find that a wine doesn't have a nose or bouquet at all. It can still be a good, very drinkable wine albeit most award-winning wines have both a nice bouquet and great taste.

What's the difference between aroma and bouquet? Aroma is present in the grapes and in the wine from the time it is first made. Bouquet is an additional, pleasant characteristic that develops only in the bottle, many months or years after bottling.

2) Evaluating the Taste

Tasting for Sweetness - The first thing you will probably notice is the relative sweetness or dryness of the wine. This is determined by the amount of natural sugar in the wine. Is it pleasant or overbearingly sweet, i.e. cloying? High alcohol content also makes wine taste sweet.

Tasting for Acidity - Another sensation you will notice almost immediately is the tartness or acidity of the wine. Just think of the difference between grapefuit juice and water. Acid may sound harsh but it is very important in making wine taste crisp and fresh. If there is too much acid, the wine will taste bitter and unpleasently sharp. If there is not enough acid, the wine will taste flabby and flat, like day-old beer in a glass.

Tasting for Tannin - If you are drinking red wine, you may also notice the tannins in the wine. Tannin is a chemical that comes from the stalks, pips and skins of red grapes. It tastes astringent and "mouth-drying", and makes your mouth "pucker". There are many kinds of tannin. Some tannins taste bitter. You're probably familiar with tannin if you drink strong black tea. Tannins are most noticeable in young red wines. Over time, as wines age, tannins "soften" and give the wine a certain full-bodied weightiness that is very enjoyable. (Tannin is also found in the bark of trees, where the taste protects the trees against insect infestations.)

Tasting for Alcohol - Alcohol, of course, is found in all wine. A moderate amount of alcohol in wine adds "sweetness" to the taste. If the alcohol is too high and out of balance with the tannin and fruit, and so on, then the wine will feel hot in your mouth --like a dash of Tabasco-- and difficult to drink.

Tasting for Fruit and Varietal Characteristics - The more tasting you do, the more acquainted you will become with the characteristic flavors of the major varietal grapes. With experience, it becomes easier to discern the flavors of the various varietal grapes -- Riesling, Chardonnay, Sauvignong Blanc, Merlot, Zinfandel, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon.

The question is how prominent the fruit flavors are in the wine. Young wines are often "fruity". Fruit flavors are usually considered a positive component in the quality of the wine. If you can't smell some kind of fruit in the wine (cherry, raspberry, peach, melon, mango, pineapple or whatever), then it is not a fruity wine.

Fruit is often confused with sweetness but they are not even related. Sweetness in wine is determined by the amount of residual sugar left in the wine after fermentation. Dry wines with very low levels of residual sugar and no discernable sweetness can taste very fruity. Sweet wines can taste fruity or not. That is, 'fruit' may be present or absent but it has nothing to do with the sweetness of the wine.

Tasting for Body - Body is a tasting term referring to viscosity, thickness, consistency, or texture. A wine with "body" often has higher alcohol or sugar content than other wines. Tannin, also, is a major component of what we call "body" in wine.

A good way to comprehend the feeling of "body" or "weight" in wine is to think of milk. Recall the difference in "mouthfeel" between skim milk, whole milk, and heavy cream. Wines are usually classified as "light-, medium-, or full-bodied".

Tasting for Aftertaste - This is the sensation that lingers in your mouth just after swallowing a sip of wine. Aftertaste is important in wine tasting because it can reveal an extra attribute or a fault. Sometimes certain flavors become noticeable in the aftertaste, i.e. chocolate "in the finish". A long, pleasant aftertaste, where all the components of the wine are in balance is a sign of quality. On the other hand, an aftertaste is undesirable in sparkling wines and champagne which, ideally, should be crisp and clean with no lingering aftertaste at all.

Overall Assessment - When the aftertaste is gone, ask yourself what your general impression is of the wine. Do you like it? Do all the components seem to be in balance? If you think the wine (especially young red wine) is too astringent, consider that it might improve and mellow or "open up" with age. Or is the wine ready to drink now? What kinds of food might go nicely with this wine? If you want to assign it a score of your own choosing, go ahead.

About Sherry Wines

Have anyone heard of Sherry Wines? Well, perhaps some people may have already heard of it but for me, this is the first time that I hear of this wines.

According to an article titled Sherry Wines, this wine is from Jerez, Spain. The English discovered these wines and called them “jerries”. This wine is fortified with grape brandy. There are several Sherry-type wines that are produced outside of Spain. There are also a number of styles of sherry.

Sherry is made from three different types of grapes including the Palomino, Pedro Ximenez and Muscat. Sherry-style wines that are made outside of Spain may include different varieties of wine.

Sherry is different from other wines because it is treated differently after it has been fermented. The wine is first fortified with grape brandy and then if it is to be the “fino” style of Sherry, the wine is fortified with yeast, which is allowed to grow on top. The “Oloroso” style of wine is fortified so that the wine is so strong that the yeast “flor” cannot grow on top.

Christopher Columbus may have been the first Spaniard to bring Sherry to the New World. Ferdinand Magellan is also responsible for transporting Sherry around the world. Sherry was better equipped to survive a ship journey as it is fortified.

Well, I have learned something new today. Cool...

What Is True Ice Wine?

How does ice wine comes about?

One would expect the ice wine to have a long history in winemaking, however, it does not. Well, the fact is that ice wine has only been around for about 200 years. The theory of its “birth” centers on a German winemaker who was surprised by an early frost decided to press the frozen grapes but separated them from the rest of his vintage so as to avoid ruining everything. To his surprise, the resulting wine was pure and sweet.

Ever since, ice wine has been produced in all wine producing countries of the Northern hemisphere, including Germany, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland and some other countries.

So, how different is the ice wine as compared to other dessert wines?

The key difference between ice wine and other dessert wines is that ice wines show a much clearer fruit and varietal character. This is because other sweet wines are made from botrytis (“noble rot”) affected grapes or with grapes that have been laid out and dried. As for ice wine, the grapes used are healthy at harvest, hence, a good amount of acidity remains and this gives the wine a raciness that other dessert wines generally have to a far lesser degree.

For true ice wine, the wine is made from grapes that are kept on the vine until the temperature sinks below -19.4 Fahrenheit or -7 degree Celsius. In the U.S., New Zealand and some other regions, winemakers have started producing simulated ice wine by tossing the grapes into a commercial freezer. These simulated ice wines are considered to be of lesser quality and will typically sell at half the price of ice wine made in the traditional way.

Both methods do employ the same basic idea - a grape is made up mostly of water and since only the water will freeze at these low temperatures, the sweet grape nectar can be pressed from the grapes while the frozen water remains trapped in the skins.

It is essential to harvest on the first freezing night of the year because grapes left on the vine to go through a freeze-thaw-refreeze cycle can pick up unwanted flavors. Winemakers are often nervous wrecks by harvest time as they will have spent night after night waking up repeatedly to check the temperature.

The best ice wines are clear and vibrant in their flavors and aromas. The aromatic Scheurebe grape has properties that make it a popular choice for use in crafting great ice wine. The stunning 2002 Eiswein by the famous Austrian Gsellmann and Gsellmann winery exemplifies this perfectly. Traminer is another aromatic varietal that results in great ice wines.

Finding great ice wines can be almost as difficult as making them. As the production method suggests, quantities are very limited and the amount exported out limits availability even more. Add to that the fact that every year around the holidays, most major food and wine publications will run stories about ice wines, thus ice wines found on any retailers' shelf are quickly being snapped up.

Finding a great, true ice wine is certainly worth the effort since there is nothing else quite like this spectacular dessert wine specialty.

What Is Wine?

According to Wikipedia, wine is an alcoholic beverage produced by the fermentation of the juice of fruits, usually grapes. Although a number of other fruits such as plum, elderberry and blackcurrent may also be fermented, only grapes are naturally chemically balanced to ferment completely without requiring extra sugars, acids, enzymes or other nutrients. Non-grape wines are called fruit wine or country wine. Other products made from starch based materials, such as barley wine, rice wine (sake) are more similar to beers. Beverages made from other fermentable material such as honey (mead) or that are distilled, such as brandy, are not wines. The English wine and its equivalents in other languages are protected by law in many jurisdictions.

Little is actually known of the prehistory of wine. It is plausible that early foragers and farmers made alcoholic beverages from wild fruits, including wild grapes (Vitis silvestris). This would have become easier following the development of pottery vessels in the later Neolithic of the Near East, about 9000 years ago. However, wild grapes are small and sour, and relatively rare at archaeological sites. It is unlikely they could have been the basis of a wine industry.

Domesticated grapes were abundant in the Near East from the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, starting in 3200 BC. There is also increasingly abundant evidence for wine making in Sumer and Egypt in the third millennium BC. The ancient Chinese made wine from native wild "mountain grapes" like Vitis thunbergii for a time, until they imported domesticated grape seeds from Central Asia in the second century BC. Grapes were, of course, also an important food. There is scant evidence for earlier domestication of grape, in the form of grape pips from Chalcolithic Tell Shuna in Jordon, but this evidence remains unpublished.

Exactly where wine was first made is still unclear. It could have been anywhere in the vast region, stretching from Spain to Central Asia, where wild grapes grow. However, the first large-scale production of wine must have been in the region where grapes were first domesticated, Southern Caucasus and the Near East. Wild grapes grow in George, northern Levant, coastal and southeastern Turkey, northern Iran or Armenia. None of these areas can, as yet, be definitively singled out, despite persistent suggestions that George is the birthplace of wine.

Wines are usually named either by their grape variety or by their place of production. Generally speaking, Old World (European) wines are named for the place of production, with the grapes used often not appearing on the label. New World wines (those from everywhere except Europe) are generally named for the grape variety. More and more, however, market recognition of particular regions and wineries is leading to their increased prominence on New World wine labels. Examples of recognized locales include: Napa Valley, Russian River Valley, Willamette Valley, Sonoma, Walla Walla, Central Coast, etc. Still, though, the grape variety is almost invariably present on the label. This is not the case with most European wines because of tradition and legal restrictions. However, to consumers, the system can be confusing if not impenetrable. For example, 72% of French adults report that they have difficulty understanding wine labels. This is understandable; the many systems of geographic nomenclature with their precise meanings and implications are highly complex.

Within Europe, a major exception to the no-grape rule is with German wines, for which it is not uncommon to find this information on the front label. To accommodate market demands, an increasing number of French wine makers are labeling their bottles with the variety or varieties of grapes included, as permitted by law.

The taste of a wine depends not only on the grape species and varietal blend, but also on the ground and climate (known as terroir) where it is cultivated. Historically, wines have been known by names reflecting their origin, and sometimes style: Bordeaux, Rioja, Mosel and Chianti are all legally defined names, reflecting the traditional wines produced in the named region. These naming conventions or "appellations" (as they are known in France) dictate not only where the grapes in a wine were grown, but also which grapes went into the wine and how they were vinified. The appellation system is strongest in the European Union, but a related system, the American Viticultural Area, restricts the use of certain regional labels in America, such as Napa Valley, Santa Barbara and Willamette Valley.

While most countries restrict the use of European place names, there exists a legal definition called semi-generic in the United States that enables U.S. winemakers to use certain generic terms (Champagne, Hock, Sherry, etc.) if there appears next to the term the actual appellation of origin in order to prevent any possible confusion. Generally only the most inexpensive, mass-produced wines (or vin ordinaire) make use of these place names as semi-generic wine names; most of those now use the more popular varietal labeling.

Some blended wine names are marketing terms and the use of these names is governed by trademark or copyright law, rather than a specific wine law or a patent on the actual varietal blend or process used to achieve it. For example, Meritage is generally a Bordeaux-style blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, and may also include Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec. Use of the term Meritage is protected by licensing agreements by The Meritage Association.

Wine is a popular and important beverage that accompanies and enhances a wide range of European and Mediterranean-style cuisines, from the simple and traditional to the most sophisticated and complex. Red, white and sparkling wines are the most popular, and are also known as light wines, because they only contain approximately 10-14% alcohol. (Alcohol percentages are usually by volume.) The aperitif and dessert wines contain 14-20% alcohol, and are fortified to make them richer and sweeter than the light wines. Although there are many classes of dinner wines, they can be categorized under six specific classes as follows:

• Apéritif (or better known as "appetizer wines"): include dry sherry, Madeira, Vermouth and other flavored wines, made to be consumed before eating a meal.
• Red wines are usually dry and go well with such main-course dishes as read meats, spaghetti and highly-seasoned foods.
• Rosé wines (also called "pink wines") can be served with almost any dish, but are considered best with seafood, salads, cold cuts, pork and curries.
• White wines can be very dry to rather sweet, these wines should be served chilled, and go well with white meats, seafood and fowl.
• Sparkling wines are frequently served at banquets, formal dinners and weddings. They can be white, pink (rosé), or red. The best known sparkling wines come from the Champagne region in France. Sparkling wines from Spain are called Cava, and in Germany they are called Sekt. Although often served throughout a meal, sparkling wines do not generally pair well with main meals, and should be served as an apéritif or with certain entrées.
• Table wine is not bubbly, although some have a very slight carbonation, the amount of which is not enough to disqualify them as table wines. According to U.S. standards of identity, table wines may have an alcohol content that is no higher than 14%. In Europe, light wine must be within 8.5% and 14% alcohol by volume. As such, unless a wine has more than 14% alcohol, or it has bubbles, it is a table wine or a light wine. In reality, in those regions where grapes ripen fully, such as California's hot Central Valley, a large portion of New World red wines have between 14 and 15.5% alcohol, yet are still certainly 'table wines' in the practical sense.
• Dessert wines range from medium-sweet to very sweet. These wines are classified under dessert wines only because they are sometimes served with desserts. Among these are port wine, sweet sherry, Tokaji (Tokay), Sauternes and muscatel.
• Cooking wines typically contain a significant quantity of salt. It is a wine of such poor quality, that it is unpalatable by itself and intended for use only in cooking. (Note, however, that most cooking authorities advise against cooking with any wine one would find unacceptable to drink.)

The labels on certain bottles of wine suggest that they need to be set aside for an hour before drinking to breathe, while other wines are recommended to be drunk as soon as they are opened. "Breathing" means allowing a wine to aerate before drinking. Generally, younger wines benefit from some aeration, while older wines do not. The word, "younger", refers to the first one third of a wine’s life, which varies from wine type to wine type and from wine to wine. For most red wines, "younger" means up to one to two years, while for white wines, it could mean as little as a few months. However, with every rule, there are exceptions: for a Beaujolais Nouveau, younger is measured in months, if not weeks; for a hearty Barossa Shiraz, it could be up to ten years. "Older", as one would expect, refers to the last one third of a wine's life.

During aeration, the exposure of younger wines to air often "relaxes" the flavours and makes them taste smoother and better integrated in aroma, texture, and flavor. Wines that are older generally fade (lose their character and flavor intensity) with extended aeration. Breathing, however, does not benefit all wines, and should not therefore be taken to the extreme. In general, wine should be tasted as soon as it is opened to determine how long it may be aerated, if at all. It should then be tasted every 15 minutes until the wine is, according to individual preference, ready to drink. As a general rule, younger white wines normally require no more than 15-30 minutes of aeration while younger red wines should be no more than 30-60 minutes. If in doubt, it is better to err on the side of too little aeration than too much. Note that 'aerating' a wine involves more than removal of the cork. For aeration to provide any benefit whatsoever, the wine must be decanted.

How about the health effects of wine (and alcohol in general)? Well, they are considerable ongoing studies regarding this subject.

It now seems clear that regular consumption of up to 1-2 drinks a day (1 standard drink is approximately equal to 5 oz, or 125 ml, of 13% wine) does reduce mortality, due to a 10%–40% lower risk of coronary heart disease, especially for those over the age of 35 or so. Originally, the effect was observed with red wine. Compounds, known as polyphenols, are found in larger amounts in red wine, and there is some evidence that these are especially beneficial. One particularly interesting polyphenol antioxidant found in red wine is resveratrol, to which numerous beneficial effects have been attributed. Red wine also contains a significant amount of flavonoids and red anthocyanin pigments that act as antioxidants. With excessive consumption, however, any health benefits may be offset by the increased rate of various alcohol-related diseases, primarily cancers of mouth, upper respiratory tract, and ultimately, cirrhosis of liver, especially if consumption of red wine is immoderate.

Other studies have shown that similar beneficial effects on the heart can be obtained from drinking beer, and distilled spirits. However, recent studies show that only red wine reduces the risk of contracting several types of cancer where beer and other alcoholic beverages show no change. Dr. Sinclair of Harvard University and others believe that resveratrol is the active molecule responsible for the significant difference in lowering cancer risks and that the required amounts are only found in red wine. Trace amounts of resveratrol exist in grapes, white and red wine and peanuts.

Sulfites (or sulphites) are chemicals that occur naturally in grapes and also are added to wine as a preservative. They can trigger a severe and life-threatening allergic reaction in a small percentage of consumers, primarily asthmatics. In the USA nearly all commercially produced wine, including that with no added sulfites, is required to state on the label "contains sulfites." In other countries they do not have to be declared on the label, leading to a common mistaken belief that only wine from the USA contains sulfites. Many consumers who have adverse reactions to wine, such as headaches or hangovers, blame added sulfites but are probably reacting instead to naturally-occurring biogenic amines such as histamine. The quantity of sulfites in a glass of wine is the same as in a serving of dried apricots.

Okay, that's all I have for wine at this moment in time. So, lets enjoy our wine and cheers...