If you want to ask how to taste a glass of wine, I think many of my friends know: “Watch”, then “Smell”, then “Product”.
But don’t forget, at the SuperWine show, there are not only wines, but also spirits and wines. If you meet a favorite spirit at the show, do you know how to taste it? In fact, the method is still: “looking” first, then “smelling”, then “goods.” However, in “Wang, Wen, and Pin”, the way is different from wine.
The first step: hope
Whether it is tasting wine or spirits, the first step is “looking”. First, we need to prepare a wine tasting cup. The tasting glass used in the general tasting wine is a tasting glass developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). This tasting glass presents the shape of a tulip, which is good for aromas.
The spirits tasting also has its own dedicated wine glass, which is similar in shape to a wine tasting cup, but slightly smaller than a wine tasting glass. Therefore, if you can’t find the spirit tasting cup, you can also use the tasting cups developed by the International Organization for Standardization.
When tasting wine, you need to pour 50 ml of wine into the cup, while the spirits only need to pour 25 ml. Then, as with wine tasting, we need to observe the clarity of the spirits. Most spirits are clear and translucent. If there is ambiguity or sluggishness, consider whether there are defects.
The second is the color. The color of the spirit can indicate its style and age. The colorless “white spirit” is usually not aged. The gold and brown spirits are usually aged in oak, but some are added with caramel. Increase its color. There are others, such as “emulsification phenomenon” and so on.
The second step: smell
In the process of smelling, wine and spirits are different. When you smell a glass of wine, you need to shake the glass gently so that the aroma in the wine is fully emitted. Before smelling the spirits, you first need to add 25 ml of pure water at room temperature to avoid excessive concentration of alcohol, which will dehydrate our nose and lose its sense of smell.
In addition, the addition of pure water is conducive to the release of the aroma of the spirits, without the need to shake the glass, we can smell the aroma of spirits. It should be noted that when tasting a variety of spirits, we need to pay attention to the amount of pure water added to each spirit must be the same to ensure that we can make a fair comparison.
Unlike the aroma of wine, spirits rarely have the aroma of fresh fruit, but more of the aroma of oak barrels or the added aroma of caramel during the ageing process.
The third step: product
Adding pure water is also good for tasting spirits. If it is not added, strong alcohol will paralyze our taste buds and reduce our sensory experience. When tasting the spirits, we can drink a small sip, let the wine stir in the mouth for a few seconds, then spit or swallow.
At this time, the wine remaining in our mouth will volatilize with the heat in the mouth, which will make our sensory experience reach the extreme, so that we can slowly taste the flavor of a spirit. In addition, like wine, we also need to feel the spirit, alcohol and aftertaste of a spirit.
People’s perception of the body is often described as a taste, which includes the fullness, texture and stickiness of the spirits and the overall perception of alcohol, sugar and flavors (and sometimes oak tannins). The spirit of a spirit can be described as light, medium or full.
On the whole, the spirits of the spirits are relatively high in alcohol. The young spirits and the spirits that retain more flavor after distillation will taste a bit rough, and those that have been aged for a long time are pure and clean. The spirits are very “soft” when they are drunk.
The biggest difference between spirits can be found in the aftertaste (swallowing or spitting out the residual taste in the mouth). The light vodka and rum are short, clear and simple. And like many years of cooked cognac, whiskey, will show a few different flavors within a minute after spitting or swallowing.
Finally, whether it is wine or spirits, we should evaluate it objectively. The standard of a spirit of spirits is: balance, length of aftertaste, complexity, concentration and representation of the place of origin.
In addition, the 20th SuperWine will be held from May 29th to 31st, 2019, and it will be early. Everyone learns more about the expertise of wine and spirits. At the SuperWine exhibition site in Shanghai’s National Convention and Exhibition Center, you can spit lotus and scream…
