What a wine taster should know and be able to do

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Tasting a particular product is a delicate, specific process. The term itself means evaluating the taste of a particular dish or drink. For example, when an expert tastes wine, comparing different varieties and types, he should take a sip, hold it in his mouth until the liquid mixes with saliva, and the tester recognizes all the subtleties of the flavor bouquet, and then spit it out. It should be clarified that a professional tasting is akin to a theatrical performance and is associated with various kinds of accessories.

A bit of terminology

As mentioned above, a wine taster is a specialist who evaluates this type of drink according to various indicators: taste and aroma bouquet, strength, color parameters. Therefore, it should not be confused with professionals from related industries: oenologists and sommeliers. Oenologist - a specialist in the field of technological processes of winemaking, an expert in the production of wines. And the sommelier draws up a wine list, selects wines for certain dishes.

Necessary little things

A wine taster, starting the process, must know some of the subtleties that distinguish the pros fromamateur.

• For example, if you need to evaluate several drinks at once, you should do it according to this principle: white, light wines are tasted first, then dark, red ones. Between sweet and dry, the latter are skipped ahead. By age, priority in samples is given to the young, followed by more seasoned ones. And, of course, the tasting by strength is also on the rise.
• The taster must also pay attention to the shape of the glass. By the way, wine is sampled not from an ordinary faceted glass, but from a glass. The leg is desirable high, equal in length to the hand. Glass is thin. In general, ideally, each type of drink should have its own glass. You need to hold it by the leg so that the liquid does not warm up from the heat of the hand. And the glass itself must be perfectly clean.
• A competent wine taster will pour exactly one third of the liquid, so that it is convenient to rotate the glass to assess the aromatic bouquet.
• There are only three stages of the trial. They go through 4 stages, which can be described as follows: analyze the sensations received, describe them, compare them with those samples that have already been evaluated, and make your own “verdict” on the product.

Features of the profession

Wine taster is a profession that combines not only acquired skill, but also innate talent. According to statistics, only about 15% of people have such abilities. The profession requires a special development of the senses, taste, visual and olfactory memory. And, of course, understandingknowledge, fluency in specific terminology. A wine taster must know the name of each stage of the production process. What exactly happens to the drink, and how it will affect the final result. For example, a professional taster by smell, taste and color can correctly tell where the wine was produced, in what year and from what varieties of berries.

Do they specifically teach tasting? Unfortunately no. Courses can be organized at restaurants, bars, wineries. Food technologists must also specialize in this profession. A good specialist is highly valued and will always be in demand in his field.