Wrong glass, Sir!

I like to drink wine. I was actually in the business for several years back in the day. We have a modest cellar and an unparalleled label collection. Still, I am not making any claims here. I am not a sommelier, nor have I taken any courses/exams to advance my knowledge. But, I still like to drink wine, good wine especially. This is how I taste a wine:

prenote: wine is sort of a food, and it is changed to a significant extent by the other food extant. This was demonstrated to us by a guy named Doug Eisele, whose parents owned the famous Eisele vineyard in Napa, while Doug was sort of a host at Franciscan. You might try this sometime. He presented four wines, two whites and two reds. He had four cheeses, different in texture, age and milk derivation. We cut each cheese, haha, into four pieces, the tried wine one alone and with a little of each cheese. It was remarkable fun and a learning experience, also.

So, get reasonable wine glasses. You can but them fairly inexpensively and they will make you glad you did. Pour about a quarter of the glass, gently swirl and LOOK. See the color, purple in young reds, straw in older whites. See the clarity, note the meniscus, where the wine meets the glass: is it thick and clear? See how the wine clings to the side of the glass? Lilly, Lilly, LEGS. In higher alcohol wines, or wines with residual sugars, the legs are thick trickles, so unctious. You already know a lot about this wine and have yet to even sniff it.

Swirl to increase the surface area of the wine, and give it a whiff. This is one area that really is amusing because we all will try to describe the "nose" differently. Maybe certain aspects are more prominent to us. Do you smell fruit, or earth, forest floor, cedar? Although this sounds creative, these aromas are often encountered, and should be for certain wines. There are thousands of different volatile elements that can tickle the olfactory, and this is the most variable and expressive part of a wine.

Taste. Although we only really taste four elements, salt, sweet, sour & bitter (there is a controversial fifth, that I do not know much about), this is why we have wine. Because there is still a lot of olfactory appreciation going on, draw a little air in to further boost the volatile elements. There are a variety of measures to apply: mouthfeel, viscosity, complexity, duration, aftertaste. Also, see how it changes over time. After the wine "breathes" or if the temperature changes, how do all the things we appreciate change?

And you should eat good food with good wine. Tasters in white tile laboratories ( lavatories) are working. We do enough work otherwise, so pull a cork or unscrew a cap and toast your friends. "Wine is constant proof of God's love." Ben Franklin was right.