This is the art of “tasting”, “savouring” a wine; approach it with our senses and evaluate it aided by memory. Our final judgement is always based on the pleasure it causes us, and such pleasure is the blend of our impressions from its colour, aroma and taste.

Colour

Tilting your glass against a white background, you observe the wine’s depth and hues, which give us a first sign of its taste and often indicate its age. The colour of “young” white wines is bright, brilliant, white yellow. As time passes by, the colour is changing into more intense yellow or gold, to reach its brown hue, which is a sign of aging. When it comes to a red wine, intense purple colour shows that it is young. If, however, there are orange and brown glints at the edge of the glass, we conclude the wine is old (the older it is the higher their percentage is).

Aroma

The best way to appreciate it is by carefully swirling the glass and then sniffing the air at the mouth of the glass. You try to assess the intensity of the aroma, its quality, its character, its complexity.

Taste

Take a small amount of the wine in your mouth, swirl it around your tongue and then swallow it. Note how the initial impression is changing throughout this procedure, as the wine is flowing through your mouth, and try to describe the “feeling” it causes us.