Enjoying a glass of red wine
One moment we are told by the government that drinking red wine is good for us and the next that we are drinking too much wine; it is not surprising that many people grow cynical of government health warnings and the contradictory advice to advice to both buy red wine and not buy wine. A little of what you like does you good, so this article is about how to enjoy drinking it.
So, you have opened the wine and allowed it to breathe a little, which some people believe enhances its flavour. Enjoying wine really starts with pouring it into a clean clear cut crystal glass and examining its colour. The colour of a wine can say a great deal about how it will taste and feel in your mouth. Some young red wines have an excessive amount of tannins which are phenolic chemicals that can be unpleasant. They can also be astringent, which makes your mouth feel dry and uncomfortable, and in excess they exacerbate hangovers. Such wines are generally coloured deep red or purple. As the wine ages, the tannin level reduces and its colour changes to a much lighter red, the colour of house bricks.
Such a brick coloured wine is likely to taste less fruity than when it was dark, and its flavour will be enhanced with sophisticated spicy overtones.
Next you should gently swirl the wine around the glass to release its aromas and smell it. Take a long drawn out sniff filling your lungs with its scents. What scents do you detect? Younger wines have the scent of plums and berries; they are also present but to a lesser degree in older wines where you will also find fierier and sharper scents that might manifest themselves as overtones to the initial smell sensation. The way in which the secondary and tertiary overtones harmonise with the early fruity smell is an indication of the wine’s quality.
Next you should take a small sip of the wine giving it time in your mouth to linger and interact with your taste buds. In reality what you are doing is enhancing the original smelling experience; whatever we may like to think of our palette, our sense of taste is very restricted as we have only five kinds of taste sensation: sweet; bitter; savoury; salty; and sour. Around 80% of what we believe to be taste is really smell. Draw in some air through your mouth to enhance the sensation.
Swallow the wine. It is a waste to spit it out even if you are at a wine tasting. As you gradually get through the bottle you may find that the overall sensation of drinking the wine improves. Contrary to what you might think, this is not so much to do with the effects of the alcohol, but by your response to the astringent elements of the various tannins in the wine. The first glass might cause a dryness of the mouth, but by the time you drink the second your mouth will cease to react to the tannins and the wine will feel much smoother.
Order another bottle.
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