Wine tasting is regarded as a highly cultured exercise with definitive conventions that must be observed. These conventions never change regardless of when or where a wine tasting party is held. If you choose to have a wine tasting party, your guest list must be limited so that you have a room that is comfortable. You must never have a crowd and you want your guests to feel at home as much as possible. No situation should arise where your guests are pouring their wine and they are bumping into other guests because the room is not spacious.
The Need for Sufficient Water and Food
You must have sufficient drinking water during the wine tasting experience. Your guests will want to rinse their mouths after every tasting because this allows them to experience various wines. Some wines are very thick and it is necessary to rinse because your guests will not be able to properly experience the next wine if they have the thicker taste ingrained in their mouths.
Another reason why you need water is so that your guests can quench their thirst because they cannot drink the wine alone if they are thirsty. Your guests will also need food although you need to carefully consider the type of food you provide them with. Never serve any food that will interfere with the wine testing experience. Any food that is served must be unflavored.
The Stages in Wine tasting
Wine tasting goes through four stages. Firstly, there is the stage where the wine is seen or rather it’s appearance. The wine must be held against a white background such as a napkin to assess its color and purity. Red wines will generally have two color hues from dark or deep purple to scarlet red. With time and as they age, red wines lose their color. White wines have a range of colors including lemon gold, amber, different shades of gold, and different shades of yellow. As they age, white wines generally darken. Any white wine that is cloudy or discolored has probably gone bad.
Once you have looked at the wine, you should spin it around the glass to ensure that it has sufficient air and its distinctive smell is released. When the smell is released, place your nose in the glass and breathe deeply. You have to be very attentive to the aroma because older wines have an aroma that is delicate and exquisite compared to the ones that are lesser in age. Some wines have a fruity flavor and smell and you will be able to tell which fruit the wine was made from. Other wines are also either spicy or earthy and again you will be able to tell from the smell.
Finally, you get to the most important stage of tasting. To get a good taste of the wine, make sure your mouth is half full and delicately move the wine around your mouth. This will ensure that the aroma goes all over your mouth to allow you to determine if the taste of the wine corresponds with your perception about the wine’s banquet.
There is much more to wine tasting than just pouring wine in a glass and tasting it. There are skilled tasters who do this regularly and are depended upon to ensure that the wine is just right. This does not mean that you cannot have a wine tasting experience where you simply have fun and discover new wines.
Steak is perfect for red wine, agreeing about the best red wine to accompany your steak might be a bit of a challenge. How you cook your steak matters but you can go along with any red wine for pairing with steak as long as it is a wine that you are fond of. You need to look into the level of dryness that you prefer for the wine that you choose. You need to consider a few factors when you want to find the best red wine that will go well with your steak.
Should you choose something lean for your steak, Pinot Noir would be an ideal choice as an accompaniment. You can find this type of red wine from most parts of the world where wine is produced and it is generally made from grapes. It is a popular in Burgundy, France. If you love steak that has been charred a little, it will be advisable to go with wine that is more ripened and is also sweetened. You will definitely enjoy a Coonawarra or Napa Valley cabernet with charred meat. Red Bordeaux and malbec can work very well with steak that is served with sauce. If you choose to add a little spice to your steak, you should go with a ripe Rhône or Languedoc red. One ideal wine in this category is Minervois.
You need to determine what goes where between your buffet table and your dining table. Any large item or anything that is hot should be placed on the buffet table. Other smaller items can be placed on the dining table. In planning for what goes to the buffet table and what goes to the dining table, you need to consider what your guests will use on the dining table and what can be left on the buffet table. Everything they will need while on the dining table to make it easy for them to serve should be placed within reach. Everything else should go to the buffet table.
You need to make sure your guests understand what they are eating. Some might not want to serve certain dishes as a preference and others probably have health complications and will want to avoid certain dishes. It helps to label every food item so that your guests know exactly what they are getting served.