Wine-Tasting Tips for Beginners

Here's some good news for wine lovers! You need not know a thing on tannins or vintage years to delight in the activity. In fact, forget all those rules you think you must know before actually enjoying the experience. Wine is what you, the drinker, makes of it, and our preferences are of course unique.

In any case, here are six simple tips to help you make a wine-tasting event more unforgettable for you as a newbie:In any case, below are easy tips that can help make wine-tasting more memorable for you as a beginner:In any case, the following are six basic steps to make your every wine-tasting event unforgettable as a beginner:

Swirl it before sniffing. You definitely must swirl the wine in your glass and smell it before tasting it. The swirling allows opens up the wine to oxygen and makes it more fragrant. Getting a strong whiff of the wine prior to tasting it also preps your palate for the flavors it should expect.

Spit or swallow as you wish.

The reason behind spitting out wine is to stop you from getting intoxicated, but nowadays, wineries typically offering much smaller portions during tastings - about two or three ounces - so intoxication is highly unlikely. Back then, spitting out wine was necessary to keep wine tasters from getting drunk, but most wineries now serve way smaller portions during tastings - no more than two or three ounces per wine - so the possibility of intoxication is essentially negligible. So, if you'd rather enjoy the wine all the way down, swallow it. Or spit it out, you decide. It's completely your choice, and any one is acceptable. Check out these Solvang wine tasting rooms or find the best wine tasting guide.

If you have questions, ask.

If you feel as if the wine steward is speaking in tongues, it's always good to ask for clarification. Winemakers love babbling about these things and typically forget that many are alien to their jargon. Of course, a bit of research prior to the tasting goes a long way as well. Nowadays, it's all a matter of Googling.

Create a budget.

The cost of participating in a wine-tasting activity varies broadly. It's smart to know the cost and it coverage before picking a winery to visit. And do consider that if you go to a value-driven tasting, you should be ready to buy a bottle at the end of the tasting as this is expected.

Take down notes.

Finally, know that no one really expects you to to remember everything about the wines you've tasted throughout an entire event. It's completely fine to ask for a pen and paper at the beginning (many vineyards will even offer without you asking) so you can take down notes as you go along. And there are no such things as "right" or "wrong" notes. These are only to help you remember what you liked about the wine, what you didn't like about it, and your reasons. Continue reading more on this here: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/7-ways-to-avoid-looking-like-an-idiot-and-enjoy-a-wine_b_57cf493be4b0f831f7060017.