The optics
Tasting wine starts with your eyes. Before you take the first sip or touch your nose to the wine, you should first look at your wine.
As soon as the wine has flowed down the side of the glass, it is swirled and held up to the light. The visual appearance provides initial clues about the age, alcohol content, grape variety and type of expansion of the wine – these factors can of course also be achieved by Odor and The taste as we have already seen in other blog posts.
Tip: Hold the glass at an angle against a white background without a pattern and try to see the color and the color intensity. It is best to look at the wine in daylight without direct sunlight.
You can see the following factors:
hue, intensity
The colour and its intensity give an indication of the grape variety and the age of the wine (see also below). In red wine, brownish reflections can indicate a certain maturity, in white wine This applies to a dark golden colour. A higher intensity of the colour can also be an indication of the development in wooden barrel be.
clarity, purity
Clarity is nice to look at, but it is not necessarily a sign of quality. A certain degree of cloudiness is sometimes also an indication of the style of the winemaker, who consciously accepts it by filtering less. Similar: naturally cloudy apple juice.
Tartar, crumbs and other particles are usually not an indication of poor quality, but are completely normal for a natural product.
viscosity (thickness)
So-called church windows or tears / wine tears are structures that form on the inside wall of a wine glass when swirled. They provide information about the concentration of various ingredients, such as alcohol. Wines that are high in alcohol produce stronger tears and pointed-arched church windows, while low-alcohol wines produce weaker tears and round-arched church windows.
color and age + grape variety
Examples of which color can indicate which grape variety and which age of the wine:
white wine
- Shiny: fresh Pinot Grigio
- straw yellow: Sauvignon Blanc
- Lemon yellow: medium-ripe Riesling
- Golden yellow: ripe Riesling / Chardonnay from the barrique
- Altgolden: mature Chardonnay
red wine
- Black Red: young Grenache
- Ruby red: medium ripe Pinot Noir
- Cherry red: medium-ripe Merlot
- Purple: ripe Syrah
- Brick red: Tempranillo from the barrique
- Garnet red: mature Cabernet Sauvignon
What visual peculiarities did you notice during the wine tasting? Please share your experiences with us by sending a message to theresa@vioneers.com .
Cheers!
