In my little list of alliterations from the earlier post's title, the first step in wine tasting is "See". The idea is simple: take a look at what's in your glass before you pour it down your throat. Many wine experts can tell you why. They'll say it can tell you many things about the wine, including how old it is."Wait a minute," you're thinking. "I can see the vintage right on the bottle!" In this case, however, age is a reference to the maturity of the wine, not just the length of time that has elapsed since the fruit was harvested. Every wine will mature at a different rate. And I mean every wine. Sure, there are some rules of thumb: a Cab will take the longest to mature, sometimes 10 years or more, while a Sauv Blanc or a Pinot Gris can be delicious a few months after bottling. But within each varietal, there will be a wide range of "ages" even among wines that were bottled on the same day, due to myriad factors such as the soil and weather in the area they were harvested and different winemaking techniques.
Okay, back to tasting.
Generally speaking, red wines get lighter in color as they age, while white wines get darker. Another thing to look for with regards to the age of the wine is how dense the color is at the edge of the glass. If the color fades at the edge when you tilt your glass while holding it in front of a white piece of paper (anything white will work), then it is a more mature wine. There will be a distinct ring near the edge with almost entirely clear liquid on the outside. If the color goes all the way to the edge, and again depending on the wine itself, it may be too young to drink. We'll get into some other signs of immaturity in later posts.
This is good information to know, if you're going in with some knowledge of the specific wine you are looking at. For example, if you've had the same wine from the same producer from multiple vintages but never this year, you may be familiar enough with the wine that this information can benefit you. Due to all the factors that are involved however, as I intimated before, this won't really do anything for you if you don't know this particular wine. A mature Cab from one producer may look like a young Cab from another, and vice versa.
Another item of interest in the "See" category is the much-ballyhooed idea of "legs" in a wine. If you can see how the "age" thing might be somewhat useful in the right circumstance, let me unequivocally state that the legs issue is total and complete bunk. Some wines are thicker than others and have more glycerides and residual sugar in them, so they coat the glass and leave sticky trails of themselves streaming toward the bottom of the bowl after you swirl it around. So what? Some of the finest wines of all time leave no perceptible trail, while others leave tree-trunk sized legs. It doesn't mean anything when it comes to quality.
Next up, Swirl...and maybe Sniff. I'm not sure I can seperate those two. So it may be a long one. :)
