We talked quite often about which coffee shop we went to and what kind of coffee we drank, but at that time we didn’t quite understand how to properly taste coffee. But when we started buying different types of coffee either in the Blazer chain of stores or in Furshet by weight, there was a great desire to learn how to taste coffee correctly. I wanted to really feel the real taste of the purchased coffee, its aroma. Not too long ago, a couple of attempts were made and the resulting taste sensations were carefully compared with the descriptions in the books. After that, we decided to take this issue seriously. And we invite you to join so as not to miss the most aromatic and delicious.

We decided to turn to the all-knowing Internet for advice and this is what we found:

Every coffee lover should be able to taste it. There is no clear coffee tasting ritual like there is for wine tasters. Professional tasters sip coffee from a spoon, roll it around in their mouths and spit it out into a bucket.

If you want to compare several varieties at once, brew coffee using your usual method. Do not add milk and/or sugar to your coffee - do this after tasting.

You need to know that heavily roasted beans mute and even destroy the difference in taste. Therefore, try to buy light or medium roast coffee beans. For the purity of the experiment, you should drink the same amount of coffee of the same grind, equally brewed.

Place 2 tablespoons of different types of coffee in each cup. Coffee must be ground immediately before brewing. Pour 100-120 ml of just boiled water into cups. Some of the coffee grounds will sink to the bottom, while the rest will form something like a crust on the surface. Wait a few minutes for the coffee to steep. Then start exploring its scent. Take a spoon and, leaning towards the cup, break the crust. And now smell it. The aroma is clearest and strongest at this moment. If you don't understand and want to sniff again, remove the coffee grounds from the bottom.

Once the crust is broken, most of the grounds will sink to the bottom. Use a spoon to skim off any grounds remaining on the surface and discard. Add hot water to a cup. Now scoop up the coffee with a spoon, bring it to your lips and suck the coffee firmly into your mouth - so that the coffee splashes all over your tongue and you feel the “blow” of taste.

Roll the drink in your mouth, around your tongue, and even try chewing. This way you will appreciate the strength and presence of sourness in the coffee.

Pay attention to how the coffee tastes in the first minutes. Notice what happens to it after a while - whether it becomes more noticeable or, conversely, weakens. After this, spit out the coffee and try to feel the aftertaste. Try again when the coffee has cooled a little - this is when the best qualities of some varieties emerge.

Between cups of different types of coffee, it is recommended to drink some water or eat a piece of bread.

How to taste wine correctly? Why do you need to turn the glass in your hands? What are “tears of wine” and do you need to be a good physicist to learn to understand wines? Let's talk about this and much more with Italian sommeliers.

Those who want to learn to understand and choose them correctly must follow the rules of tasting and know the properties inherent only in high-quality wines.

After reading our article, of course, you will not become Andrea Galanti and Enrico Bernardo, one of the best sommeliers on the world stage, however, you will learn to distinguish “ink” and mediocre wines from truly good products wine farms.

Andrea Galanti, best sommelier in Italy 2015. Photo vinoway.com

Here are the 7 main tenets of a sommelier.

Pour it and take a closer look

Tasting glasses should be filled one-third full. Then take the glass by the stem and bring it to eye level, tilt it slightly, observing the shade of the wine against the white background (use a towel or piece of paper). This is done in order to better see the tone of the wine (for whites the shade changes from greenish for young wines to amber for aged ones, for reds - from purple to brick red). The rule, in principle, without going into details, is one: aged wines always have a darker, richer color.

Slow rotation

Now slowly turn the glass to “feed the walls with wine” (avvinare le pareti). Take a close look at your glass. Do you see the "tears"? If not, that means your wine's ethyl alcohol content is probably low. Only wines with a high content of ethyl alcohol “cry”. In the picture you see a wine with an alcohol content of 13.5% - this is enough to form “tears”.

The term “tears of wine” was first used in 1865 by physicist James Thomson; later Italian physicist Carlo Marangoni devoted his own dissertation to studying this effect, called the Marangoni Effect. Thus, thanks to wine, physicists were able to explain many phenomena observed in colloid chemistry and hydrodynamics.

Thus, there is only one conclusion from all this for the sommelier: the narrower the “tears” formed by the wine and the slower they drain, the more structured and strong the wine you taste.

Breathe in the wine

Inhale the aroma of the wine while holding the glass in a fixed position. Inhale slowly and deeply, after a few seconds move your nose away from the glass so as not to get used to the aroma. Remember that the first impression of a bouquet of fragrances is the most correct.

Thorough Study

Now rotate the glass again slowly, so that the wine covers the walls of the glass as completely as possible. This way the wine aroma will reveal itself most vividly. At this moment, the sommelier evaluates the most important characteristics of the wine: the aroma (it can be full, noble, pronounced, delicate, sophisticated, persistent, elusive, then, like the aroma of your favorite perfume, sweet, fruity, with a hint of spice, herbaceous... ), its intensity (how strongly the aromatic bouquet is felt); stability (how long the aroma stays in the nose); complexity (the number of aromas combined in a single bouquet); quality (the overall rating of the bouquet ranges from “ordinary” to “complex” and “excellent”).

Let's drink!

Finally, the time has come to taste the contents of the glass. We take a small sip and hold it in our mouth without swallowing, so that taste buds responded in the right way. Wine can be more or less sweet, gentle (if the mouth feels like a velvety drink) or sharp, more or less astringent (due to tannins), fresh or sour, light or structured. All qualities are assessed based on personal feelings regarding the degree of saturation of taste sensations on the tongue after tasting.

We drink again and... spit it out

We take another sip, another sip, trying this time to also swallow a small amount of air to enhance the taste sensations. A good wine leaves an impression of harmony and balance between its basic sweet, sour, bitter and salty components. After swallowing, focus on the taste: wait about 15 seconds to notice the aftertaste.

If the number of wines to be tasted is numerous, the wine can and should be spat out (of course, not in the same way as the people in the picture celebrating San Ferminio in Pamplona, ​​Spain).

Write down your feelings

Write down in a notebook the impressions you received while tasting wine and compare them with the impressions of other people, if you are not tasting alone. To be more precise, you can use established standard sommelier scoring charts (found online). This way you can even create a personal library of your favorite wines. With practice, you will soon see how quickly you can hone your skills.

Wine tasting is a skill which requires certain knowledge, skills and experience. It will take time to reach a level where, after drinking from a glass, you can give a ten-minute monologue with detailed metaphors and comparisons. But you can form your own opinion now. So, how to taste wine correctly.

Before trying the next variety, it is best to eat a crust of bread and rinse your mouth with plain water.

Wine taste killers

It should be remembered that before start wine tasting You should not consume food products that can “clog” your taste buds with their taste and smell (coffee, cigarettes, menthol candies, overly hot or spicy dishes, traditional pickles, etc.). It is important to remember that the line between taste and smell is very blurred, and if you deliberately dull your ability to feel the taste and aroma to the fullest, then you can forget about the pleasure of tasting wine.

You should also remember about your health. If you have a runny nose or a cold, it is better to avoid wine tasting, otherwise you will not feel the smell or taste of the wine being tasted to the fullest. Before trying the next variety, it is best to eat a crust of bread and rinse your mouth with plain water.

Glassware for proper wine tasting

Wine containers must be perfectly clean and dry. For wine tasting, it is better to fill the glass one-third full., it is better to hold on to the stem so that your hand does not heat the wine. When tasting, it is better to go from simple and young wines to richer ones, from dry to sweet, from white to red. By the way, the walls of the glass should be slightly fogged - this means that the wine is properly cooled.

Getting started wine tasting first evaluate the color. The way a wine looks can say a lot about its quality and origin. First of all, you need to evaluate the color of the wine in contrast with the white background (a tablecloth on the table or a napkin will do for this). Tilt your glass slightly and notice the color of the wine and its depth. The color of a wine can also tell you a little about the grapes used to create it. For example, the color of Pinot Noir wine will be the palest. Young white wine, as a rule, has a greenish-yellow tint, while young red wine has a violet-scarlet tint. Over time, the color scheme changes towards brown.

Young white wines have a golden color, more mature ones turn into amber shades, and a gray or brown rim of the disc in the glass may indicate the fading of the drink. Red wines gradually transition from purple to brown. Most unaged red wines appear dark purple. As the wine ages, its color loses depth and becomes paler. If you notice a brown tone in a young wine, this is not very good. Most likely, this wine underwent too rapid and aggressive oxidation. Look at how the wine plays in the glass, whether there are any foreign particles on its surface, evaluate its transparency, shine and the presence/absence of carbon dioxide bubbles.

Sometimes When tasting wine you may encounter small crystals"tartar" Do not be alarmed, this is not a fault in the wine and means that it has been exposed to low temperatures. Some producers specifically chill the wine and filter it to remove tartar, which confuses some consumers. Interestingly, white wines from countries with cooler climates do not sparkle as much as wines created in countries with warmer climates.

If you tilt the glass too much or shake it, you will be able to see the so-called “tears” flowing down. The more alcohol in a wine, the more impressive they look and can give you some idea of ​​the alcohol content of the drink. After you enjoy the performance of the wine in the glass, you can begin to discover its aroma. Professionals divide the so-called “noses” into the first, second and third.

First nose. After you pour the wine from the bottle into the glass, immediately smell it without shaking it. You will feel a changing range of aromas as the wine interacts with oxygen. Your task is to determine the main notes and their intensity.

Second nose. You need to twist the glass, holding it by the stem, giving the wine the opportunity to interact with oxygen, get rid of the remaining carbon dioxide and reveal its aromas. Place your nose in the glass and inhale, you will feel a different bouquet from the first nose.

Third nose. In order to trace all the changes occurring in a glass of wine, you should wait a while and inhale again from the glass of wine. This way you can track the full aromatic evolution of the wine, as well as the wine’s resistance to oxygen.

To do this, it is recommended to fill the glass about 1/4-1/3 full to avoid spilling anything. You can place the glass on a horizontal surface and, holding it by the base, make several circular movements. Now bring the glass to your nose again, you can even lower your nose into the glass a little (don’t overdo it). Take a deep breath. Don't smell too much, as this will dull your sense of smell. It's better to pause for a couple of minutes and try again. What to look for? Fragrances can be (roughly) divided into several groups:

• fruit (citrus, berries, fruit, dried fruits);

• floral (geranium, rose, violet);

• herbaceous (green peppers, artichokes, tea, tobacco);

• spicy (anise, black pepper);

• nut;

• caramel (butter, chocolate, honey, molasses);

• woody (oak, cedar, vanilla);

• earthy (mushrooms, dampness);

• unpleasant odors of chemical or microbial origin.

Evaluate the intensity and typicality of certain aromas for a given variety and type of wine. Think about the smell from the glass: young wines have a fruity aroma (notice the smell of raspberries or citrus, for example), older wines have a complex aroma (including the smell of oak bark or grass).

Wine tasting

Very often, when someone tastes wine, they barely take a sip or simply wet their lips. Please don't do this. Put this amount of wine in your mouth so that you can completely immerse your tongue in it and roll it from side to side. “Roll” the wine over the entire surface of your mouth and tongue, “chew.”

Do not swallow immediately. First, try to gently inhale air through your mouth. I agree, it doesn’t look very aesthetically pleasing, and the sound is like a water whistle. But in this way you will connect the retronasal sense of smell to the assessment, which will allow you to experience the bouquet even more fully. Professional wine tasters they try to take a small portion of wine into their mouth and pass oxygen through it. In the mouth, the wine heats up and releases aromas that are detected by our sense of smell. A good wine should have a harmoniously composed taste and gradually open up in the mouth, giving away its bouquet.

Remember that the main thing is not the assessments of experts and specialists, who can only be a certain guideline for you. The main thing is that you like the wine and suit your taste preferences. You can better appreciate the taste of wine, if you hold it in your mouth for a while, paying special attention to your sensations and taste in the back of your throat. You can evaluate the taste of wine according to the following parameters:

• astringency;

• acidity;

• harmony (combination of all elements);

• fullness of taste (body);

• drinkability (is it easy to drink on its own).

When tasting wine They share a short taste (a sensation that is felt on the palate only for a while and goes away quickly) and an aftertaste. They can and most likely will differ. Try to capture these nuances and describe them.

Evaluate the aftertaste of the wine

Aftertaste of wine is the feeling you are left with after you finally take a sip of wine. And it can be very different from the taste that you felt on your palate.

What you need to pay attention to is the taste of the alcohol (which you shouldn't taste) and the amount of time it takes to the taste of the wine stays in your mouth. This is called aftertaste. The taste of some wines can last longer than one minute. Assess the balance of the wine. Are there any dominant flavors or does the wine have a clear and defined taste? The longer the aftertaste, the better the wine.

Do you dream of getting into contact with the world of great wines, but don’t know where to start? Start with ! This is the simplest and effective way. You will taste several samples of wine and learn a lot about this unique world.

If you going to a tasting for the first time, Perhaps you feel awkward because you don’t know how to behave “correctly”? Then read our article, it will answer most of your questions and remove all doubts.

What types of tastings are there?

Wine tastings can be divided into two main groups: professional and amateur or client. Typically, professional tastings are closed events for professionals and experts of the wine market.

But the second category will be much more interesting and accessible to you. She will show you the way into the unknown. At amateur tastings, they try several wines, unlike professional ones, where they usually taste a huge number of samples, tell how wine is born, about grape varieties, interesting stories about wine farms, answer various questions from the audience, so don't hesitate to ask questions, even if they seem stupid to you. And when the wine leaves a wonderful aftertaste, the tasting ends with warm friendly communication. After all, wine is what unites us.

Preparing for tasting

– Don't wear strong perfume After all, even ordinary, heavily perfumed deodorants confuse experienced tasters. You may miss important nuances.

– Ladies, It is not recommended to use lipstick. It is also perfumed and also leaves traces on the glass.

– Avoid and taste spoilers and aroma killers. If you want the tasting to take place, do not consume chocolate, coffee, garlic, onions, citrus fruits, spices, or hot foods before it (or better in the morning). Before the tasting itself, do not chew chewing gum or smoke. It is advisable not to smoke at all.

At the tasting

Tastings usually start with dry white wines, followed by red wines, and then sweet wines. But the final order of tasting is determined by the wine expert.

You've probably seen how professional tasting experts thoughtfully evaluate the aroma of the wine, smacking their lips in order to better understand its taste. You may have thought that they were simply showing off. I'm sure some people definitely do this. But in any case, each stage of tasting has its own significance.

- All attention to the label. When you are shown a bottle of wine, pay attention to its label, it can tell you a lot: where the wine comes from, the level of alcohol and sugar, the grape variety. Even the style of the label can give subtle hints about the style of the wine.

They say that wine has an eye, a nose and a mouth, which we correlate with how the wine looks (wine color, density), what aromas it gives and how it tastes.

– Wine color. To better determine the color, hold a glass of wine to a white surface; you can use a white sheet of paper or a napkin. Evaluate its color and degree of transparency. A brighter, more intense purple color may indicate that the wine is young, while a brick-red hue suggests its age. Light, dry white wines will have a faint golden or straw hue, while rich, oaked or sweet whites will have a golden amber hue. Twist the glass so that the wine swirls, this way it is more actively saturated with oxygen. Pay attention to whether the color of the wine has changed, whether traces of flowing “tears” remain on the glass, which indicates a more oily structure of the wine.

- Wine aromas. Bring the glass to your nose and listen to what the wine is telling you. What aromas does it have? Do fruits, berries or herbs and flowers, wool, tanned leather, animal smells or chemical aromas predominate? Yes, yes. We can easily distinguish all these aromas in wine. Try to identify the family of scents first, and then the more specific scents. For example, in a glass Sauvignon Blanc you smell bright aromas berries, especially blackcurrant and gooseberry. In good condition Merlot you can easily hear animal scents: meat, rabbit fur, tanned leather. Here it is important to use your imagination and remember with which aromas you can associate the palette of aromas that wine shares with us.

– Let's try the wine. Let's take some wine into our mouth and swirl it on our tongue to better assess its density and structure. Don't forget to breathe through your nose. Determine what the wine tastes like and how strong its acidity is. What aromas of wine do you smell in your mouth? Are they similar to nose scents? Take a little air into your mouth, feel how dense the body of the wine is, or how light it is. If the wine is red, determine how viscous the wine's tannins are.

Swallow the wine. Does the feeling of the wine remain in your mouth and its aromas? If yes, then count how many seconds this feeling lasts. The quality of the aftertaste speaks volumes about the quality of the wine itself. The longer it is, the higher quality and serious the wine.

– Keep a wine notebook. In it you can record your tasting observations and rate the wine. This way you will remember what and when you tasted. Because when you get into the taste of wine, you forget about almost everything.

If there are many samples available for a tasting, use/ask for a crochoir, the name given to a jug for spitting wine. If you don’t do this, you may not get to the end of the tasting.

Where do the tastings take place?

Whether you live in a wine-producing region or not, tastings can be found fairly easily if you're so inclined. They are usually carried out by wine distributors: boutiques, shops, wine companies, wine markets.

While on vacation or traveling, you can visit a winery and learn all about the region and local wine from the winemaker. Combine two in one and book with us! But if the journey is not yet is on your radar, check out what wine events are happening in your area, like this one.

I wish you interesting discoveries and a pleasant aftertaste!

PS. Wine contains alcohol, which is harmful to health.

The author of this article is Svetlana Kasparova, a wine and travel expert. Svetlana is a graduate of the Entoria wine school and a winner of the Moscow Wine Games with many years of experience working with leading wine brands from Italy, Spain, Chile and other regions.

Svetlana conducts, you can book your place or send a request to organize an individual tasting or wine tour.

The quality of wine is assessed by expert tasters, guided by a certain set of rules developed over more than one century - during the time that winemaking has existed on earth. The taster determines not only the taste of the wine, but also its color, texture, and aroma. Before tasting wine, you should not eat chocolate, drink coffee, or smoke. All this can affect the perception of the taste characteristics of the wine, and then the assessment of the quality of grape wines (as well as all others) will be incorrect.

According to professional terminology, wine tasting is a sensory and emotional assessment of the qualities of the product under study through contemplation, smell and taste.

Many of you have probably attended various events that included wine tasting. Well, for those who have not yet had the chance to attend this amazing event, just a few words about what wines the tasting begins with and what they end with.

This knowledge will be useful to you if, even for a small number of guests invited to your house, you prepare different types of wine.

How to properly conduct a wine tasting

Before tasting wine correctly, one cannot help but remember the well-known saying: “There are no comrades for taste and color.” In relation to wine tasting, it can be rephrased in more professional language - tasting, perception and evaluation of the taste qualities of wines is a purely individual area, all people feel and interpret their sensations differently.

Therefore, the final choice of priority wines will always be solely your personal choice, since we are now talking not about professional, but about home tasting.

According to the rules of wine tasting, we start with simple drinks, gradually moving on to more complex ones. First they try white wines, then red ones. From tasting dry wines they move on to fortified sweet ones. First they try young wines, then more mature ones. And, accordingly, they move from less strong wines to stronger wines. It’s not for nothing that people have the expression: “Drink with increasing degrees.”

This is a simple sequence of wine tasting.

Even before you have a wine tasting, take care of the right wine glasses. Their shape, the glass from which it is made, the height of the leg, etc. play an important role in revealing the bouquet and taste of wines.

The “king” of wine glasses is a tulip-shaped glass, the bowl of which is made of thin crystal of good quality and a high degree of transparency. The stem of a wine glass should be long, thin and graceful, the height corresponding to approximately medium length hands.

Such criteria for the shape of a wine glass will allow you to fully not only enjoy the taste of the drink, but also admire the thick wine seductively flowing down the walls of the crystal glass, get maximum information about it, remember this miracle in the glass and the impression received from the tasting .

Rules and photos of wine tasting

There are a number of rules for wine tasting, without which it is impossible to determine the quality of the drink. First, it is important to remember that you should only hold a wine glass by the stem, not by the bowl. There are a number of reasons for this.

1. The wine will slowly warm up to the temperature of your hand. This is the difference between tasting wine and cognac, the glass of which, on the contrary, must be held in your hand by the bowl, warming this drink as much as possible.

2. Due to the difference in body temperature and the glass of wine you are holding in your hands, fingerprints remain on the glass - this is an unpleasant sight that reduces the impression of tasting drinks.

3. During tasting, you need to look at the wine with love, carefully rotating the glass by the stem. And if you twist the glass by the bowl, there is a high probability of spilling wine on yourself, ruining your clothes and mood.

It would not be superfluous to remind you that wine glasses must be perfectly clean, well washed to remove stains and odors and, most importantly, thoroughly rinsed under running water, since residues detergent or simply its smell can completely distort the taste of the wine, or even simply ruin it.

The next important requirement for a wine glass is that it must be wiped dry and thoroughly polished with fresh cotton kitchen towel without any fibers in the fabric.

As you can see in the wine tasting photo, the glass simply must be perfectly shiny and transparent.

To feel the bouquet of wine and enjoy its aroma, you should slightly rotate the glass to the sides, holding it by the stem, so you need to pour the drink no more than one third of the volume of the glass.

Remember a few more useful rules, which will help you identify defects in wine.

1. Wine that has a musty smell, which means it was prepared in violation of technology or spoiled during storage, as a rule, has a very unpleasant taste.

2. The same can be said if you choose a low-quality cork for sealing wine - if, when you bring the glass to your nose, you clearly feel the characteristic taste of the cork, then the taste of the wine will also be unpleasant.

3. Excess sulfur, which also happens when wine preparation technology is violated, gives the drink a rotten hue and a characteristic smell of garlic.

4. White wine, oversaturated with oxygen, will have an acetic-sour taste, reminiscent of ascorbic acid, and red wine with the same problem will acquire the taste of spoiled fruit preserved in alcohol.

5. Excess alcohol in wine will give a burning sensation in the mouth, which is incompatible with the taste of wine.

6. Excessive sugar content will create an imbalance in the drink and give the wine an intrusive and heavy cloying taste, making it look like a hastily prepared liqueur.

7. If the wine preparation technology was violated because the tannins in it were not matured enough, then the young wine will have an overtly bitter taste, and older wines will acquire a dryish taste, which will deprive the drink of all its charm.

It is curious that the same type of wine can be perceived differently depending on many external factors: the natural season, time of day, wall color, lighting and temperature in the room where the tasting takes place. Also, a purely human factor plays an important role - the mood and well-being of the taster, as well as the food that he took shortly before tasting the wine.

In order to fully reveal the bouquet and aroma of the drink, it is not recommended to smoke during tasting, and to use perfume before starting.

Wine tasting is carried out in several stages, at each of which the appearance, aroma, texture and taste are successively assessed.

Determining color is the assessment appearance and the first impression of the wine.

The wine should be viewed against a light background. Ideal option The white background will be a white tablecloth or a regular white sheet of paper.

The wine glass should be held vertically by the stem, after which you should tilt the glass away from you and carefully examine the shades.

Young red wine usually has a bright color with a slight purple or crimson tint, which may change later.

Young white wines can range from completely colorless to light yellow or light greenish. More mature wines take on an amber hue.

The intensity of the color shade of a wine depends on many reasons, but mostly on the grape variety.

Transparency- another important indicator for wine. The wine should not have sediment or bubbles. A cloudy shade with a suspension of small particles of grapes is considered a wine defect.

Fluidity- this is an indicator by which the structure and viscosity of wine is judged. Fluidity can be easily determined by rotating the wine glass in a circular motion. The wine will flow down the walls of the glass to its original level, leaving so-called “legs” behind it.

Experts believe that the more there are and the longer they slide, the thicker the wine. But it is better to determine the structure of a wine not just visually, but in the mouth, during direct tasting.

Effervescence- another characteristic of sparkling wines. In other words, this is the size and activity of the movement of bubbles that rise from the bottom of the glass. The higher the quality of the wine, the smaller in size and more intense the movement of carbon dioxide bubbles.

Characteristic aromas of wines

The olfactory assessment of wine is the most crucial moment of tasting, since it is the notes of aroma that contribute to the formation of taste sensations.
Also at this stage, the persistence of the aroma is determined, which comes to life and reveals even more when the glass is rotated in the hand.

Wine aromas are divided into three main groups.

Primary aromas- they are distinguished by a feature inherent in the grape variety from which the wine is made.

Secondary flavors arise from alcoholic fermentation as a result of fermentation of wort. They are more noticeable in young wines.

Tertiary- these are the characteristic aromas of wines that the drink acquires during aging and after fermentation is completed (in a barrel or bottle).

Taste assessment of wine involves not only determining the taste, but also perceiving the structure and consistency of the wine.

Receptors on the tongue, located in different parts of the tongue, are able to distinguish four basic tastes: sweet, bitter, sour and salty.

Astringency- this is a determination of the astringent properties of wine. This indicator mainly applies to red wines, which contain tannins.

Aftertaste- the final chord of the tasting. This is the totality of aromatic sensations and residual taste. It is believed that the longer the aftertaste is felt, the better the quality of the wine.