Wine Tasting - What You Should Know About Wine Tasting

As wine tasting is considered to be a very sophisticated practice there is a specific etiquette you have to follow. This etiquette should remain the same whether you are at a vineyard, a wine tasting private party, or in a restaurant.

When you have a wine tasting party you should only invite the amount of people that you can fit comfortably in the room you want to have your party. A crowd may be intimidating. You do not want any of your guests to feel like they are being rushed when they are pouring a glass or tasting the wine.

Always be sure to have bottled water on hand when you are having a wine tasting. This allows your guests to rinse their mouths out between tasting different wines. If you have just tasted a very heavy wine you must have water ready for the guests. If you do not then their next tasting may be tainted due to the heaviness lingering in their mouths. In addition, water is good because guests will get thirsty and they need to drink something other than the wine.

When you have a wine tasting it is important to provide foods for your guests. However, you also want to be sure to have food on hand that will not change the way the wine tastes in any way. The best snacks to have on hand include unflavored things like bread or unsalted crackers.

Decanting

Some people practice decanting before they serve wine at a wine tasting. This is very controversial to many different wine enthusiasts. Decanting is the process of letting wine breathe before you serve it.

Some people let their wine breathe for a few hours before they serve it. However, decanting is not just letting your wine breathe but it is when you pour your wine into a completely different container to allow the breathing. Some people even apply a special filter when decanting to remove bitter sediments that might have formed in the wine.

Younger bottles of wine benefit more to an aeration process than the older bottles. However, the sediment is more common with the older bottles. Many people say that airing out the bottle can relax the flavor of the wine, making them taste smoother. The wine might have better integration. However, all wines do not benefit from this method. Some wines are meant to drink immediately after popping the cork from the bottle.

The best way to tell if you need to let a bottle of wine air out or be decanted is to taste it first. As soon as you pull the cork off of the wine bottle you can tell by tasting if it needs to air out a little.

Blind Tasting

The best way to hold a wine tasting is by blindly serving the wine to your guests. This means that you do not want the guests to know what you are serving to them. You might want to serve the wine in a black wine glass. However, the guests should also not see the shape of the bottle of wine nor should they ever see the label on the bottle.

You never want a wine taster's judgment to be altered because they know specific details of a certain wine. Certain considerations that can alter a taster's judgment about wine include the price, reputation, color, and the geographic region the wine came from.

People have expectations about wine when they know these considerations. If a wine is very expensive or comes from a certain geographical region some people tend to have expectations of the different varietals. Eliminating expectations of the tasters allows a wine tasting to go smoother and the scores of the wines will be more accurate.

Vertical Tasting

When you have a vertical wine tasting you will have one varietal of wine from the same vintage. This means you might have the same wine from different years; 1999, 2000, 2001, etc. The most common purpose of tasting wines like this is to get a good idea of a certain wineries style and composition. You can also get an understanding how the different weather patterns affect grapes during certain years.

Horizontal Tasting

When a horizontal tasting occurs you will use the same wine from many different producers. This type of tasting will allow you to determine which wineries you think produce the better wine. This wine will be from the same year and the same type of wine but from different wineries.

Tasting Flights

When you hold a tasting flight you will have many glasses of wine out for the tasters to test. Next to each glass of wine you will have a card including the specifics of the wine; winery, geographical demographics, type, and more. Some flights include up to 50 glasses of wine to be tasted.

This gives a taster an idea what types of wines come from certain parts of the world and more. You can also get a good idea of the different tastes of the different types of wines when you taste wine through a flight.

Old World versus New World Tasting

Many people enjoy this type of wine tasting. The Old World according to wine enthusiasts is considered to be countries like France, Italy, Austria, Spain, etc. The New World is North America, South America, South Africa, New Zealand, and Australia.

The reason these countries are considered to be the New World is because they are new to the wine producing industry and late starters. However, these countries are significant in producing wines.

Many people like to feature the same types of wines from the old and new worlds to determine which they like better. Some people like to do a horizontal or vertical method with this also. There are many ways to mix it up so you can make your wine tasting successful.

Wine and Cheese Tasting

There are many different palate influences that cheese has when you drink a particular wine. When you taste specific wine combinations properly you will understand how well cheese and wine really do go together.

The best way to serve a Cabernet sauvignon is with blue cheese. All you need is just a little. You might serve the blue cheese with an unflavored French bread also. The blue cheese acts by coating the mouth and laying a foundation which will soften the wine and make it taste very good.

The best way to test this is by taking a taste of the wine first. Wait a minute. Then take a bite of the cheese and take another drink. You will see a big difference.

Wine and Chocolate Tasting

Chocolate and wine can go together if you do it right. Some people completely disagree but this is because they do not know how to pair up the two together. When you drink wine with chocolate it is important to be sure the wine is as sweet as the chocolate you are serving. If you have a wine that is not as sweet as the chocolate it will cause the wine to taste very sour.

If you want to serve lighter wines at a wine tasting with chocolate it is best to stick with chocolates that are lighter also. For instance, the white chocolates are the best with the lighter wines. A white zinfandel will go very well when you pair it with a chocolate that is bittersweet.

Priceless Tasting

Priceless wine tasting is not telling the guests how much the bottle of wine costs. If you have several bottles of wine you don't want to let anyone know the price of the wine. When guests know what the price of the wine is their judgment is tainted. Never reveal the price of the wine.

If you feel you must tell the guests the price of the wine, be sure you tell them after the tasting is over. This is because it is a natural perception that an expensive wine is superior to a wine that costs a low dollar amount of money. This may be true in some circumstances but it isn't always the case. You don't want assumptions to be made before the wine has been tasted or it will ruin the wine tasting.

Price point Tasting

The price point tasting method is very similar to the priceless tasting. However, you will use wines that are in the same price range when you serve the wines. The important factor is to establish a baseline for the dollar amount and stick to it.

Big 8 Tasting

A Big 8 tasting includes a wine tasting of the different varietals of the Big 8 wines in a tasting flight. The big 8 wines include red and white wines. The red wines included in the Big 8 are Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Shiraz, and Merlot. The white wines included in the Big 8 are the Chardonnay, Riesling, Pinot, and the Sauvignon Blanc.

This is a great way to have a wine tasting if your guests don't know the differences with the different varietals. They can work their way through the wines and find out for themselves what each of the wines taste like and the differences.

This is a fun way to learn about the wines. When you have newer wine tasters this might be the first type of wine tasting you want to have at home. This way, the next wine tasting you have your friends will know what to expect with the different blends of wine.

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Wine's trail of joy and gloom

Should winegrowers rip up their vines, or wait for the tide to turn? Greg Ninness asks the questions. This year's huge sauvignon blanc vintage is putting pressure on winemakers' profits – and widening a rift over how to restore the sector's financial health.

The industry is a house divided, with some arguing for increased production, while others want to see vines ripped out to limit supply. Whatever position they take on the issue, something most wine companies and vineyard owners will have in common is that their profits have been hammered by the international financial crisis, bumper vintages in 2008, 2009 and again this year, and the high New Zealand dollar.

Those effects are showing up in the accounts of both huge multinational wine companies and smaller niche players. Two months ago Pernod Ricard, this country's biggest wine company, released its accounts for the year to June 2010, and they weren't pretty reading.

Revenue declined 2.9 per cent to $337 million, while the cost of sales was up 11.6 per cent, reducing gross profit to $92.1m from $127.6m in 2009.

But that was more than wiped out by a $170m hit to its balance sheet as it wrote down the value of its Montana operations (since renamed Brancott), which helped push the company to a bottom line loss of $183.2m. The pain hasn't ended there.

Last December the company sold five Gisborne vineyards and 12 of its best known brands, including Lindauer, Corbans and Saints, incurring an $87.8m loss for this year's accounts.

By comparison with Pernod Ricard, NZAX-listed The New Zealand Wine Company (NZWC) is a market minnow (revenue for year to June 2010 $13m), but its accounts for the six months to December 2010 released at about the same time as Pernod-Ricard's, show it is facing similar pressures.

Revenue declined by 6.5 per cent compared with the same period in 2009, while higher costs and a substantial downward revaluation of assets pushed it to a loss of $1.1m for the half year.

In the directors' report accompanying those figures, NZWC chairman Alton Jamieson set out what he believes caused the company's trading difficulties and suggested a radical solution.

Large increases in the grape harvests in 2008 and 2009 had resulted in so much wine being produced, many wineries were forced to sell into the bulk wine market. That is wine destined for sale in casks under retailers' house brands. Such wine is nearly always sold at a much lower price. That in turn reduced the prices of wineries' own premium brands.

"The oversupply of wine has become a crisis business outcome for the New Zealand wine industry," Mr Jamieson said. "The sheer volume of bulk wine export sales has negatively impacted the net earnings and balance sheets of all New Zealand wine companies and grape growers," he wrote.

Looking ahead to this year's vintage, NZWC's directors endorsed a NZ Winegrowers report issued at the end of last year, which suggested a grape harvest of around 265,000 tonnes would "maintain progress with clearing the bulk wine surplus to match the demand for branded New Zealand wine".

But a harvest of 300,000 tonnes would lead to "a large ongoing bulk wine surplus that would take the industry backwards".

If the harvest came in at the upper end of those estimates, NZWC's directors recommended the industry look at funding options to start ripping out vines.

When the harvest was finally gathered, it exceeded even the worst-case expectations, coming in at 325,000 tonnes, with sauvignon blanc, the main export variety, up 29 per cent on last year.

The idea of pulling up vines to reduce supply and shore up prices is not new, but many oppose it.

It would be difficult to find someone with a more expansive view of this country's wine industry than Marlborough viticulturist Peter Yealands.

Originally a contract grape grower, his Yealands Estate is one of the largest vineyards in the country, with 700ha planted in sauvignon blanc, 100ha of pinot noir and 100ha of pinot gris.

In 2008, Mr Yealands made the switch from contract grower to winemaker, and now uses all of the grapes grown in his own vineyards plus some bought in, to produce wine in his own winery. This year he processed 14,500 tonnes and believes that could increase by another 2000 tonnes as his younger vines mature.

The move from contract grower to winemaker carried huge risks and Mr Yealands said that after his first vintage in 2008 he had nearly four million litres of wine in the winery and not one customer.

That situation did not last long and although his production doubled this year, all his wine is committed, he said.

Mr Yealands is now planning to expand and is looking at what he described as non-organic growth opportunities, suggesting acquisitions or partnerships.

He acknowledges prices have fallen, although he believes that has an upside. "Our average sale price has come down far too much, across the board," he said.

"Everyone's out for a bargain and nothing sells wine like a cheap price. But it's going into markets like Germany that have never been able to take it because it's been priced too high. So we've got this expansive growth for Marlborough sauvignon."

However, he said he was making money, in spite of the lower prices and the compounding effect of the high dollar. But he said many others will be doing it tough.

He said the average price paid to growers for sauvignon blanc grapes this year was around $1100 a tonne, but growers probably needed $1500 a tonne for sustainable production.

Many smaller wineries and vineyards were becoming uneconomic, he said. "There's a lot of consolidation going on in the industry. You need volume, so you can get economies of scale. Today you need to be a low-cost, high-quality producer."

Because there has been no significant new planting of sauvignon blanc vines in Marlborough since 2008, and export demand is continuing to grow, he believes by 2013, demand will once again start to outstrip supply.

"As supply plateaus and prices improve, people will start thinking about planting again, but it will take two to three years for that planting to come on. They could be the golden years," he says.

He also believes many small vineyards around 8ha might not survive long enough to see it. "A lot of them are becoming uneconomic and the trouble is, there's probably not a lot of appetite for the stronger ones to gobble them up. My hope is that the price will lift enough so that they have a bit more of a life, but ultimately, I don't think they have a great future," he said.

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High Country wineries form Boone Area Wine Trail

The mountains of northwestern North Carolina hope to become the Southeast's next hot destination for wine lovers. The Watauga Tourism Development Authority has helped develop the Boone Area Wine Trail to attract more visitors to the high country vineyards around Boone and Banner Elk. A former winemaking researcher at Appalachian State University, Richard Wolfe, says some high-level elevation locales are comparable with successful European viticulture climates.

The tourism authority's website includes an interactive map to steer visitors along a scenic route past the Grandfather Vineyard and Winery, the Banner Elk Winery and Inn and the 1861 Farmhouse Restaurant and Winery. The wineries are producing a variety of wines, including Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir.

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French wine consumption drops by three billion bottles

Researchers fear the culture of wine drinking is being lost in France, with younger generations less likely to savour a bottle over food and more prone to drink simply for pleasure. They are also less aware of its cultural significance to France. Just 16.5 per cent of the French population are now regular wine drinkers, according to research from the ESC Pau research centre and Toulouse 1 Capitole University/ Regular consumption over meals has been replaced by the French drinking wine occasionally rather than frequently, often on nights out. This has occurred within the last two generations, according to researchers Pascal Poutet and Thierry Lorey.

In a study in the International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, the pair looked at successive generations and their approach to wine drinking, dividing the demographic into four groups.
The oldest was those over 65 years who had lived through the Second World War, followed by those between 40 and 65 who lived through a period of growth and worldwide development. Those 30 to 40 - “Generation X”, who grew up through the French crisis of the 1990s, were next, followed by those under 30 - the internet generation. “Each successive generation represents a general increase in libertarian attitudes and irreverence towards institutions”, says Dr Poutet.

While all agreed on the value and ’bon homie’ of drinking wine, it was the over 65s who most linked it with French heritage and were more likely to drink it daily and share the experience. The middle groups are much more occasional drinkers and drink more socially with friends rather than family, and social status is a factor in their wine consumption. But for the under-30s, wine consumption is very much the exception rather than the rule.

Dr Poutet said: “There is a dual gap between the three generations, older, middle-aged, younger - on the one hand, the consumption frequency gap (from a daily wine consumption to a festive one, and then exceptional), on the other, the pleasure gap (evolution from a genuine pleasure towards a more ostentatious pleasure, more difficult to perceive for the younger generation).”The younger generations may still take pride in French wine but have little awareness of its cultural place in French history, he said.

He explained: “The generational analysis of the representations of wine in France does seem to be appropriate to explain the deep changes that wine has undergone in the last 60 years. “It is precisely the progressive loss of the identity, sacred and imaginary representations of wine (nation, region, lesser importance of the transmission of the culture of wine by the father within the family, etc) over three generations that explains France’s global consumption attitudes, and especially the steep decline in the volumes of wine consumed.”

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Wineries leverage technology to reach consumers

The digital revolution is spreading across the wine world — whether the industry is ready or not. More than 450 wine-related applications are now available on the iPhone and other mobile devices — more than six times the number that existed only 18 months ago, according to a recent survey.

Last year, people on Facebook, Twitter and other social media had 14 million online conversations about wine, providing recommendations, reviewing vintages and suggesting the best wineries to visit, said Paul Mabray, chief strategy officer for VinTank, a Napa consulting firm.

Social media and mobile technology, which have garnered widespread coverage for playing a key role in the Arab uprisings, are now quietly usurping the wine industry’s traditional marketing powers and fueling a revolt among the hordes of casual wine drinkers.

“As an industry, we can no longer ignore digital,” Mabray said. “We now live in a Google economy.”Mabray and others are pushing wineries to develop strategies that incorporate the widening arsenal of digital tools such as social media, data management and company-wide integration of workflow technology.

Some wine executives, such as John Jordan at Jordan Vineyard & Winery in Healdsburg, are already more than two years into implementing their digital strategies. “It’s a constantly evolving, messy thing,” said Jordan, the winery’s chief executive officer. “But technology makes it possible for a company to really become customer centric.”

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