Yup, it really is as simple as that.

If I see one more tosser sniffing the bouquet of a wine and extolling its hidden qualities I'm going to throw my bottle opener at them. I drink wine with my mouth and not my nose.

I don't care whether there's hints of tobacco and leather or gooseberries from the third bush on the left on a hillside just outside a small town in Southern France.
Either it tastes okay or it doesn't. All the rest is just guff designed to overawe the uninitiated into paying stupid prices for plonk.

My two penn'orth (also from the U.K.)
 

For me, there are just two steps : (1) sniff the wine (to check that it isn't corked, or otherwise obviously "off"); (2) taste the wine (to make sure it is at an appropriate temperature -- I once had a Tokaj served warm in Hungary !).

Unless you are a real wine buff, anything more is pure pretentiousness (IMHO, of course).

Remember that taste is a combination of the actual taste and smell senses. Which explains why when you have a blocked nose, it becomes harder to taste things.

That is the main reason to smell wine (let alone any food you eat) as well as taste it with your mouth. No need, of course, to tell us about the hidden qualities etc. - just say "good", "bad", "light" or "heavy".


Like I said, there are some good expensive wines out there. There is also such a thing as cheap and nasty. There are no hard and fast rules, but I'm willing to bet that there can't be a decent educated person out there that would buy a bottle of wine simply due to the hyperbole story of the taste of the wine alone (i.e. they would probably taste it before they purchase it, although what do you do if you're in a shop which has no tasting?)

Total cynical nonsense.

No argument there.

:D :D

Like separating the boys from the men. :D


The reason I swirl my wine is to allow it to open up. That works for $10 and $100 wine. If you've ever smelled a really good wine, it sets you up for the taste that will follow.

Recently I drank a $18 bottle of Washington red. The chocolate taste really stood out to those of us in the know, and those non-wine geeks, at dinner. Truth be told it was barely acceptable (to me); but the non wine snobs thought they died and went to heaven.

Bottom line, to each his own.

And ... ?

As if to harp on something else in this thread, I've had quite a few different wines now, but I have to say that I have not had a good American wine yet.

I've had good and bad Australian wines - why not? I live here! (Not in prime wine territory though - no! QLD does not have excellent wines!)

I've had good French wine - on the average, a French wine will be very acceptable to excellent; I'm most impressed by this

I've had good and bad Spanish wine

I've had good Chilean wine - one of them a heavenly Sauv Blanc

I've had good and bad (some really bad!) New Zealand wine

I've had a few American wines (mostly from California), and I'm not impressed by any of them


Now if I were to answer the OP, tasting the wine before it is served is really just to make sure that the wine is OK, i.e. it is drinkable. In most cases today, we have screwtop wines and modern storage (e.g. refrigeration) techniques, so most of the tasting thing is more a traditional thing I guess, although...

...normally if you make the 'wrong' choice of wine, tasting doesn't give you a chance to reject the wine and choose another one. In saying that, I have had situations where I've commented on the wine (especially if I asked the waiter for a recommendation) and the waiter has happily obliged to let me select another wine after tasting, free of charge. I wouldn't consider this common practice, but I have rarely sent back a bottle.

How to taste wine in a restaurant and make it look like you might know what you are doing without appearing pretentious:

1. Briefly review the wine list, but don't make a show of it. Ask your date/partner/guests if there is anything they would prefer. Consider casually polling your guests for what they they feel like eating in order to set you up for success in the next step.

2. Feel perfectly comfortable in asking the waiter, especially if he is a designated sommelier (wine steward), for a recommendation. It is not a sign of ignorance, but rather an acknowledgement that the sommelier is more knowledgeable about the specific wines they serve and how they stand up to the entrees.

3. When the wine is brought to the table, the staff will usually present you the label, take a quick glance to make sure it is the one your ordered. Don't make a show of this. A nod or light comment "that's the one" will be fine.

4. The waiter will pour a small sample for you. Unless you actually do know what you are doing, don't turn this next step into a production. While a knowledgeable wine person during an actual tasting might go through an aggressive swirling, deep sniffing, and mildly extravagent, probably off-putting, sipping slurping process, you should not. Unless you are doing it for comedic effect. The reality is, as several others have pointed out, this step is really just to make sure that the wine has not "turned" or been contaminated by TCA (cork taint). You should, rather, swirl lightly and briefly, take a brief sniff, and short taste, look across at your date and give a light smile: not a knowing smirk, but rather a small grin that says "I am having a good time and this wine adds to it."

5. Set the glass down, tell the waiter something brief and polite like "Its great, thanks". Avoid making junk up. "Pefect for my lamb, the finish is quite powerful, I think it will do nicely" would be really really foolish.

6. Casually (casually!) indicate that he should pour for you date/guests first. He knows this already, but a slight hand gesture towards your date/guests indicates you do as well, without making a show of it.

You're on the money. I guess fruit, acidity and alcohol all form my good/bad outcome. I just don't know how to quantify them.

Exactly. Most people see wine as an accompaniment to their meal; it either works or it doesn't.

One of the great things about travelling in Europe is undoubtably the house red. Wrt to wines in Australia, my parents order cases from Cellarmasters (they love a dinner party so they usually have more than their fair share of decent wine) so I can usually hive one off when I'm over there. I picked up a case of Hazyblur 2005 Shiraz earlier this week which on my binary scale I give a ^:D.

Peach, chocolate, and blackberry and more are often easy to find.
If you taste with your nose as well as your mouth. But if you taste
just with your mouth, you have only four or five choices (various
degrees of them, of course) - an oligochromatic, unenviable life
that might be correctable with surgery.

Heck, a good/bad binary is equally unfulfilling.

Even the light smile is a dubious gesture, unless your date is really
understanding.

Name them, in e-mail perhaps - a blanket statement like that bespeaks
lack of (the right kind of) experience. 'course, if you have Bundy, who
needs wine at all.

To the original question. Look at it, to see if the colour is "right" (not brown for example). Then smelling that the wine is ok (no taint or off-smells) is the important piece. Actually tasting it should just be confirmation of what you see and smell, and I frequently don't really see the need for that step.

If there is something wrong with it, no need to make a fuss, just politely explain the problem and ask for a different bottle.

Problem is, many people don't have the confidence to distinguish between not liking it because the wine is tainted and not liking it because it's just not their style...so they accept a faulty wine because the experts rate it

Which brings up another peeve. Just because an expert rates a wine high does not mean you should like it...taste is personal so just stick with what you like for the price you are willing to pay.

Exactly right.

I think Cordelli is absolutely right - the point of letting you taste the wine is not to see if you like it (you should've decided that before you ordered it) but to ensure that it hasn't been corked, i.e. gone off. This is generally more relevant for bottles with corks rather than screw-cap tops, but has become a nice tradition, really.

Sadly 95% of the taste of wine is in the nose not the mouth; perhaps explains why you haven't had that cathartic wine experience. Enjoying fine wine requires a sensual streak, and nothing else. A lot of the ritual of wine is a bit strained, but often based on sound principles even though it can be grossly exaggerated. Never the less, there really are some wines that are soooooo much better than other wines (and foods) to verge on the orgasmic. Particularly when drunk in the right circumstances.

Do you feel this way with food too? It either works or it doesn't? No shades of gray? If yes, why is wine different? If no, really? That must be awfully depressing!