Wine Tasting Part 1

Welcome to Vine to Wine this is your host Linda Moran. Today we are beginning a five part series exploring the basics of tasting and understanding wine. Learning about tasting wine is important if you are serious about it. Let us begin with the environment. Perhaps you are sitting around at home or maybe out at social type of wine tasting or visiting a winery. Whatever the case may be, find a place with good lighting and hopefully a neutral white background to set behind your glass of wine. Even a sheet of white paper will do. Begin by looking at the wine and noticing the clarity. It should be bright and clear. There really should not be any cloudy characteristics and preferable nothing floating in it. If there is anything of this nature, you should question it. Check to see if the wine is unfiltered or just has a few wine diamonds; those harmless tartrate crystals. In most cases, you will experience a wine that is brilliant and clean looking. Now beyond that the color of the wine should be in character with the variety of grape it is made from, you know, red should be red and white should be well some shade of transparent nearly clear golden or slightly straw or green color. The wine should not exhibit amber or browning colors. If it does, that is your first clue to look for something odd in the way that the wine smells and smell is the topic for tomorrow. And thank you for joining me on today's Vine to Wine.