Sofa Sommelier
Tasting Guidelines

Wine Tasting At Home Experience

As well as having some fun, we hope this experience will leave you feeling a little more educated on how to taste wine. There is no right or wrong way to taste… it is your palate so don’t be shy about sharing what you think. Everyone tastes things differently and so many things can vary how you interpret taste including your genetics, the structure of the receptors on your taste cells, and even your eating habits! 

The more you practice describing and articulating what you taste, the more in tune you’ll become to nuanced flavours. Over time you’ll learn more about the flavours you love (or don’t love!) which will ultimately help you select wines which you are more likely to prefer. The same can be applied to all food and drink, so we recommend you taste mindfully and see how it changes your eating and drinking experience!

The 5 S’s outlined below are a really helpful guide to taste wine (and any other food or drink too!). Refer back to these throughout the experience and see if you detect the same characteristics as the winemakers.

See

Have a look at your wine in the glass and hold it up to the light. See the colour and the density of the wine. This colour is brought about by the grape variety and the wine’s age. 

Fun Fact

White wines usually gain colour as they age, whereas red wines tend to lose colour as they age. 

Swirl

Either hold the wine in front of you or place it onto a flat surface, and then gently swirl the wine around in your glass. This helps to aerate the wine. The reaction between the gasses in the air and the wine changes the flavour of the wine and is typically done to enhance the flavour profile of red wines. The wine “legs” are the droplets or streaks that form on the glass when you swirl it.

Smell

Put your nose inside your wine glass and see what you can smell. If you want to sound like a true wine connoisseur, the smell is often referred to as the bouquet. One sense is always heightened if others are removed, so try smelling the wine with your eyes closed to help hone in on the flavours!

Sip

Now you actually get to taste the wine! Take a small sip of your wine and roll it around in your mouth a little so you can truly taste all that the wine has to offer. 

Fun Fact

Many people describe wine as ‘fruity’ in smell or taste. This is accurate as most wine is in fact made from fruit! When you think ‘fruity’ try to go a layer deeper - which specific fruits can you smell or taste? How would you describe the difference between an orange, compared to an apple, compared to a peach? Thinking about this question will help you to describe the wine in more detail.

Swallow or Spit

If you enjoy your sip, then keep indulging in your wine. If not, then spit it out. You may think that spitting it out is impolite, but there is a reason that all wineries have spittoons so don’t be shy if you don’t like something. 

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For additional information on how to taste wine, check out this video below.