How to Taste Wine Like You Know What You’re Doing

Good news: tasting wine properly takes about 30 seconds to learn. The rest is just practice. Delicious, delicious practice.

Step 1 - Look
Hold your glass up to the light. What colour is it? Deep and dark or light and pale? Colour tells you about age, grape variety and how the wine was made.

Step 2 - Swirl
Give the glass a gentle swirl. This releases the aromas. Don’t overthink it.

Step 3 - Smell
Put your nose in the glass and breathe in. What do you get? Fruit? Earth? Spice? Leather? There are no wrong answers.

Step 4 - Taste
Take a sip and let it sit in your mouth for a moment. Notice the flavours, the texture, the finish.

Step 5 - Think
Do you like it? Why or why not? That’s the whole point.

That’s it. You’re tasting wine like you know what you’re doing.