TastingRoom.com Walks Wine Tasters Through the Wine Tasting Process

LOS ALTOS, Calif., Oct. 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- When it comes to wine tasting – TastingRoom.com has your back!  Most people love drinking and tasting wine.  Have you ever wondered though, what wine tasting actually entails? What the difference is between drinking and tasting? Why do people swirl, sniff, and sip? What are they looking for? TastingRoom.com is here to walk you through the process.

The main difference between tasting and drinking wine is that tasting is active, while drinking is passive. This doesn't mean however, that tasting needs to be stiff or formal. The only reason you're doing it actively is for sensory memorization, which is actually something you already do every day. For example, think of a food you love. Now pick a food you don't necessarily love. The reason you can instantaneously think of those two things without them in front of you is because of sensory memory. With wine, you are doing the same thing - you taste to build a mental database of what you like and why.

There are four steps to wine tasting: sight, smell, taste and assessment.

Step Number One: Sight

• Clear or murky will tell you if it is filtered or not
• More ruby usually means more acidity, more garnet means less
• The more a wine loses color towards its rim the older it usually is
• Legs tell you about a wine's viscosity or thickness, not quality

Step Number Two: Smell

• Is the wine clean? "Corked" wine usually reeks of wet cardboard or an attic
• Certain aromas are usually linked with certain wines, like cassis with Cabernet Sauvignon and lychee with Gewurztraminer
• What do you smell?

Step Number Three: Taste

• Sweetness is the most obvious - sugar
• Sourness is felt in the back cheeks like sucking on a lemon
• Bitterness remains fairly constant through taste
• Tannin dries inside of lips
• Body and viscosity tied mostly to sugar and alcohol
• Finish - how long does the wine last?

Step Number Four: Assessment

• Do you like it?
• Why? Why not?

As you can see, tasting wine shouldn't be intimidating or pretentious. So start tasting! Following the above four steps will lead you on a path to finding your perfect wine and maybe discovering a few you didn't realize you would like along the way.

Taste for yourself: http://www.tastingroom.com/samplers/

Watch TastingRoom.com walk you through your tasting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRhGz_K8QH4

About TastingRoom.com

TastingRoom.com offers wine lovers an innovative new way to discover, taste and acquire wine that expands and enriches the wine-drinking experience. Our service lets you taste wines before you buy via sample-sized bottles delivered directly to your home. TastingRoom.com partners with top wineries to create sample-sized (50ml) tastes of their wines. Our web service lets you choose the wines you want to try and then buy the full-sized bottles. By taking the guesswork out of wine buying, we help make sure every bottle you buy is one you know you'll love – because you've already tasted it. Our innovative T.A.S.T.E. Technology™ (Total Anaerobic Sample Transfer Environment) ensures our wine samples reflect the same delicious flavors you expect in the full bottles. Learn more about our breakthrough transfer technology

SOURCE TastingRoom.com