Part 1
Everyone seems to know a lot about wines.
Do you want to know how to be confident in it?
First no one is better than you. If you like to drink wine and you enjoy it,
You can be a connoisseur in any party or at a restaurant.
First steps in the art of wine:
How to hold the wine glass?
Hold the glass towards the base of the stamp.
Like this you will never heat it, and your drink can stay cooler longer.
And then we need to check the colour . The 45°angle affords us the possibility to look at the hue of the wine, the liveliness or brilliance and potential defects. In front of us we have white, rose or red wine. It should be clean without gas or sediments.
Nose
Would you like to understand it? We have to think about if the aromas which we smell are good or not.
If the aromas are fresh, gives you an enjoyment and is pleasure to smell it than this wine is good. If you find unpleasant aromas like alcohol, cork or any aromas which is not pleasant this wine is bad.
Palate
Place a small amount of wine in your mouth, don`t swallow, place your lower lip between your teeth, and raise your upper lip. You can now draw air in through your teeth and over the wine. Practice it before you try it in front of friends, you can practice with water at home. Then at a restaurant you will be confident. The flavors you feel is the flavors which every Sommelier describes, all we have different sensitivity of each flavor. You can taste fruits, flower, spices, vegetables, oak flavors and others, and the best part your sensation are also unique and if they become more deep, you are very good connoisseur.
TIPS: TRY IT
At the restaurant: Waiter is pouring the wine, asking you `would you like to try`. You have to try percentage of cork wines is huge in any wines –white, rose, red or sparkling even. After you try it you should say: the wine is good if you feel pleasant aromas and flavors, or bad if you feel cork or other unpleasant aromas or flavors. You cannot change your wine if is not your taste. You try it because any wine can be corked and even this which you drink every day and you know them.
This was first part of our journey to be a good connoisseur.
By Gergana Nikolova, sommelier
