When going into tasting rooms, there are certain etiquette rules one should follow. If you are wondering to yourself what these rules entail, you are not alone. The most basic rule for wine tasting is to start with white and work your way to the reds. Another hint is to go from dry to sweet within your white and red wines. Strong flavors can overwhelm the palate and can hinder your taste buds from experiencing the bouquets of each wine. Always save your dessert and ice wines for last. Those have the most sweetness and fullness attached to them and affects your palates ability to experience the next tasting.

When entering a wine establishment, do not be timid. Go ahead and walk straight to the bar; most places are fairly relaxed and informal. After you take a seat, you will be approached by a bartender or a barista. If you do not know much about the wine you are about to sample, just ask. Most servers who do wine tastings enjoy explaining the wine and the flavors that are incorporated. Remember to work your way from whites, to red, to ports and ice wine. Wine tasting can be an involved process. To help you understand various flavors of wine, keep a journal when participating in tastings. This will help you to identify specific flavors, regions, and full bodied wines. Also it will be a great reference for when you want a particular flavor of wine to pair with food or share with friends and family. There are a few things to look for when doing a tasting if you are planning on becoming a wine connoisseur: color of the wine, legs, the aroma, and fullness or flavor of that wine. Smelling and tasting the wine poured for you during a tasting are the two most important steps in the examination your wine.

Now that all of our bases are covered, let us talk about spitting after tasting. Movies show wine tasters spitting out the wine after they taste. This is not always the approach that needs to be taken. The reason why people spit out the wine after tasting it is mainly because of the alcohol content involved. As we have all heard, alcohol can hinder your judgment and this is true even with our sense of taste. You only truly need to spit out the wine if you are doing several tastings, more than ten, or if you are at a formal wine tasting. Tasting 20 glasses can cause you to become intoxicated even if you spit it out because alcohol is absorbed through the skin in your mouth.

Tags: Tasting, Wine, Wine Events

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