There are many reasons to want to learn how to taste wines and develop a keen palette to be able to discern and identify wines. Like many skills, it is one you can learn and develop. Here's how.
The wine industry has it's own language and terminology used to describe the scent (bouquet) and taste of wines. You've heard the many picturesque terminology like "coffee", "heavy".
TA Sommelier is familiar with a wide variety of wine scents and has practiced identifying them by smell. There are kits like the one below that have 88 aromas found in sparkling, white, red and sweet wines produced around the world.
Typical scents used in describing wines are:
The basic 88 scents used to describe most wines are:
1.lemon, 2.lime, 3.grapefruit, 4.gooseberry, 5.pear, 6.apple, 7.green apple, 8.peach, 9.melon, 10.guava, 11.pineapple, 12.passion fruit, 13.lychee, 14.dry apricot, 15.orange peel, 16.banana, 17.raspberry, 18.blackcurrant, 19.strawberry, 20.blackberry, 21.cherry, 22.plum, 23.prune, 24.honeysuckle, 25.hawthorn, 26.orange blossom, 27.linden, 28.jasmine, 29.acacia, 30.rose, 31.lavender, 32.violet, 33.capsicum, 34.fennel, 35.tomato,36.cut grass, 37.dill, 38.thyme, 39.fern, 40.mint, 41.hay, 42.black tea, 43.tobacco, 44.blackcurrant leaf, 45.bay leaf, 46.eucalyptus, 47.iodine, 48.flint, 49.kerosene, 50.bread, 51.butter, 52.caramel, 53.chocolate, 54.toast, 55.coffee, 56.bacon, 57.smoke, 58.tar, 59.vanilla, 60.pepper, 61.cinnamon, 62.liquorice, 63.nutmeg, 64.clove, 65.coconut, 66.hazelnut, 67. almond, 68.oak, 69.sandalwood, 70.cedar, 71.pine, 72.quince jelly, 73.honey, 74.soy sauce, 75.leather, 76.gravy, 77.mushroom, 78.truffle, 79.tree moss, 80.corked, 81.sherry, 82.madeira, 83.vinegar, 84.nail polish remover, 85.rubber, 86.onion, 87.sweet corn, 88.horse sweat.
Practice by partying
There are fun ways to learn wine tasting, such as the flash cards that help you to remember the key facts and terminology. Take your parties parties and get togethers up a notch and into fun while improving your wine tasting skills.
Books About Wine Tasting
While you cannot practice wine tasting with a book; you can certainly learn the terminology, the facts, the history and many other things you will need to know.
There are books to learn the etiquette, the techniques and methods of wine tasting, as well as the history and facts of wine. Plus atlases that help you learn about the wine growing regions of the world.
Wine-Tasting Kits
These kits include the aromas that are particular to different tiypes of wine, so you can practice smelling them and learn to recognize these in blind wind tasting!
