Dive Deep into Wine: Impress Your Friends with These Wine Tips
The world of wine is endless, and it can be hard to find valuable resources to help you tap into your inner sommelier, but here at Ocean Prime, we’ve got you covered.
Knowing how to taste wine is one of the quickest and easiest way to show your friends that you know your wine. Follow this four-step method to help you find your perfect sip.
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- Sight
- Smell
- Flavor
- Share
Sight:
The first step with tasting wine is looking at the color and viscosity.
Wine is not just red or white, colors can range from gold, yellow, ruby and even a brownish color. It can be hard to see what color the wine is by looking at the glass alone, but our white tablecloth is the perfect background. Hold your glass of wine and tilt it slightly over the tablecloth or napkin. From there, you’ll see the hidden color(s) of your wine.
Viscosity in wine refers to the thickness. Wines with a higher viscosity can create a phenomenon called the Gibbs-Marangoni effect. This is when some of the liquid ‘sticks’ to the glass after being swirled or sipped. Our guests call these “legs” or “tears.”
Two qualities of wine produce more legs—sweetness and alcohol content. The higher the sugar or alcohol content, the more legs the wine will produce. Our menu
You can always ask your server to learn more about the sweetness/alcohol content of a specific bottle.
Smell:
The many different aromas of wine are one of the characteristics that make tasting it so unique. With the variety of aromas in a single bottle, it can be hard to locate them all. However, there is a trick to split these aromas apart and decipher that code.
The first step is to prep your nose by taking a small sniff of the glass—make sure the wine is in there. After, give the wine a good swirl to release all the hidden aromas, known as the wine’s bouquet. Lastly, take small, gentle sniffs of the wine with your mouth open.
Here are some of the primary aromas found in wine:
- Fruit (red, black, tropical, etc.)
- Citrus
- Floral
- Herbal and spicy
Secondary aromas include:
- Earthy
- Oak
- Oxidation (bruised apple or jackfruit)
Oxidation in some wines is intentional, like Marsala and Madeira. Next time you dine at Ocean Prime, order a glass of Drylands, a popular Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand. Try to smell the grapefruit, passionfruit and pineapple notes.
Flavor
Your experience goes beyond the taste of the food, and so does tasting the flavor of wine. Flavor includes more than six different aspects, but you only need to focus on four when dining. They are sweetness, tannin, body and finish.
This is what each characteristic means:
- Sweetness: How sweet or dry the wine is (sugar content).
- Tannin: The bitter taste (astringency) on your tongue and lips that makes your mouth dry out.
- Body: The “weight” of the wine in your mouth. Is the wine full-bodied (heavy) or light bodied (feels like water)?
- Finish: The last flavor of the wine (bitter, sour, oily, etc.) and the length those flavors linger on your palate.
To pull these different flavors, follow this guide.
- Take a sip of your wine and move it around with your tongue.
- Swallow the sip. Some guests press their tongue on the roof of their mouth.
- Slowly inhale though mouth and breathe out through your nose.
A bottle of Frank Family, Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, California is perfect to taste the different characteristics of flavor.
Share:
Thes best part about tasting wine is that the experience is different for every guest. The last step to tasting wine is the most fun. You get to share your thoughts!
After you taste the wine, take note on the aromas, flavors and the color of the wine. What notes are the strongest? Does it have a high tannin? Is the color ruby or gold?
Share with your guests what you experienced, and by the end, your Teriyaki Salmon will arrive.
Wines to Try at Ocean Prime:
Try some of these wines at Ocean Prime to share your wine tasting skills.
- Iconoclast, Cabernet Sauvignon (red wine)
- Macmurray Estate, Pinot Noir (red wine)
- Cakebread, Sauvignon Blanc (white wine)
- Far Niente, Chardonnay (white wine)