Wine tasting like a pro - for fun
Wine Classic in Aspen is a busy time. The streets and restaurants are full of weary tasters, who have given their all to explore the thousands of wines that are being poured. No question that Wine Classic is a lot of fun, and a great place to see and be seen; but, is it a good place to taste wine?
Huge tents, filled with many hundreds of people, pitched over a grassy park. Food booths grilling away, people and their associated odors, not exactly what I look for in an ideal tasting environment. So what do I prefer?
Clean and bright are the keys. Neutral odors, and few distractions. A bright white surface to compare the color of wine against (tilt your glass and look through the wine at the white background). This is what I provide for my school, what I like to see in a winery, and rarely find at a wine event.
Such a pristine environment makes it much easier to pick up on the subtleties that make one wine different from another. This is an ideal situation, and not always available, to say the least, but if you are hosting a wine tasting yourself, shoot for perfection.
White table cloths are great for a wine tasting, but beware that there is a near certain chance that there will be red wine stains on it before long. I opt to use an inexpensive sheet instead. Only a few dollars, and it will stand up to repeated bleaching, and when it does fall apart, it is disposable, unlike your Aunt Betty's hand me downs.
Wine glasses should all be the same. I use the industry standard INAO glass, and they are perfect, but whatever you use, try to ensure they are all the same. No point in each of your guests having a different experience, unless of course that is the point of the tasting.
Spit buckets are a must. Not really for spitting in - I use coffee cups for that - a spit bucket is necessary to empty your wine glass to prepare it for the next wine (by the way, I never rinse my glass with water, always with the next wine). An old beat up ice bucket works well, but anything that you can't see through is fine. You don't want your guests looking at the dumped liquid, it is a tad unappetizing.
A dry erase marker is a great tool for marking the glasses. If you have more than one glass per person, marking a number on the bottom (where it will not wear off) is important to help you tell the wines apart. I am set up for tasting, so I can have as many as 9 glasses in front of my students or guests.
Getting the right number of people is important. There are 15 tastes of wine in a bottle. That makes 10 to 12 a good sized tasting group. If your tasting is more like a cocktail party, than figure a bottle of wine for every 3 or 4 people. Just be sure you have enough wine to go around, so no one gets left out.
Food is the final part of the wine tasting experience. Here I am about to give a bit of advice that most of you will likely ignore. Don't eat when you are tasting wine. Easy for me to say, I spit (as do all of my students) but if you are drinking more than not, the lack of food will lead directly to inebriation, so take this with a grain of salt.
There is an expression among professional wine tasters "Avoid food when buying wine, serve cheese when selling wine." Food changes the way wine tastes, and cheese, with its wonderful flavors and unctuous texture, can hide many faults in a wine. If you are being serious about tasting, try not to eat, if the tasting is fun, try to make sure the foods go well with the food (or not, that too is another tasting in of itself).
So what foods, besides bread and cheese, should you serve? With so many choices, it is actually easier to mention what to avoid. Vinegar, artichokes and sweet things all make wine taste weird. Try to find foods that are unctuous (which is a nice way of saying, full of fat) and not too strongly flavored. Meats do well, and for the vegetarians, a shiitake mushroom is a good substitute.
Above all make sure your wine tasting is fun. If your group is not into serious tasting, don't make them sit down and takes notes. You can always pay as much attention as you like, without inflicting pain on those guests that are simply not into it.
Huge tents, filled with many hundreds of people, pitched over a grassy park. Food booths grilling away, people and their associated odors, not exactly what I look for in an ideal tasting environment. So what do I prefer?
Clean and bright are the keys. Neutral odors, and few distractions. A bright white surface to compare the color of wine against (tilt your glass and look through the wine at the white background). This is what I provide for my school, what I like to see in a winery, and rarely find at a wine event.
Such a pristine environment makes it much easier to pick up on the subtleties that make one wine different from another. This is an ideal situation, and not always available, to say the least, but if you are hosting a wine tasting yourself, shoot for perfection.
White table cloths are great for a wine tasting, but beware that there is a near certain chance that there will be red wine stains on it before long. I opt to use an inexpensive sheet instead. Only a few dollars, and it will stand up to repeated bleaching, and when it does fall apart, it is disposable, unlike your Aunt Betty's hand me downs.
Wine glasses should all be the same. I use the industry standard INAO glass, and they are perfect, but whatever you use, try to ensure they are all the same. No point in each of your guests having a different experience, unless of course that is the point of the tasting.
Spit buckets are a must. Not really for spitting in - I use coffee cups for that - a spit bucket is necessary to empty your wine glass to prepare it for the next wine (by the way, I never rinse my glass with water, always with the next wine). An old beat up ice bucket works well, but anything that you can't see through is fine. You don't want your guests looking at the dumped liquid, it is a tad unappetizing.
A dry erase marker is a great tool for marking the glasses. If you have more than one glass per person, marking a number on the bottom (where it will not wear off) is important to help you tell the wines apart. I am set up for tasting, so I can have as many as 9 glasses in front of my students or guests.
Getting the right number of people is important. There are 15 tastes of wine in a bottle. That makes 10 to 12 a good sized tasting group. If your tasting is more like a cocktail party, than figure a bottle of wine for every 3 or 4 people. Just be sure you have enough wine to go around, so no one gets left out.
Food is the final part of the wine tasting experience. Here I am about to give a bit of advice that most of you will likely ignore. Don't eat when you are tasting wine. Easy for me to say, I spit (as do all of my students) but if you are drinking more than not, the lack of food will lead directly to inebriation, so take this with a grain of salt.
There is an expression among professional wine tasters "Avoid food when buying wine, serve cheese when selling wine." Food changes the way wine tastes, and cheese, with its wonderful flavors and unctuous texture, can hide many faults in a wine. If you are being serious about tasting, try not to eat, if the tasting is fun, try to make sure the foods go well with the food (or not, that too is another tasting in of itself).
So what foods, besides bread and cheese, should you serve? With so many choices, it is actually easier to mention what to avoid. Vinegar, artichokes and sweet things all make wine taste weird. Try to find foods that are unctuous (which is a nice way of saying, full of fat) and not too strongly flavored. Meats do well, and for the vegetarians, a shiitake mushroom is a good substitute.
Above all make sure your wine tasting is fun. If your group is not into serious tasting, don't make them sit down and takes notes. You can always pay as much attention as you like, without inflicting pain on those guests that are simply not into it.
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