👁️Look, 👃Smell, 👅Taste, 🧠Deduce
Blind Tasting: The Methods behind the Magic🙈🍷✨⠀
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Whether you're an absolute beginner, a highly experienced master, or somewhere in-between - identifying a wine blind can be a challenge. ⠀
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It takes a lot of practice (that's right, you have to taste a LOT of wine) to build an understanding of all the characteristic, structural and stylistic differences.⠀
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There are a few tips and tricks to help you narrow down results, but most importantly, you should make use of a tasting grid (like one from WSET or CMS) to guide you. Following a grid and writing down your impressions will give structure to your analysis and help you come to a conclusion.⠀
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I've posted a more detailed explanation on my blog (link in bio), but here's a rough outline of what you should be looking for:⠀
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👁️: Look⠀
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What colour is it? Is it pale, medium or deep? i.e. How easy is it to see through?⠀
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👃: Smell ⠀
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Analysing the 'nose' of a wine is by far the most important part, so take your time reeling in all those sensory memories.⠀
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Do the aromatics jump out of the glass, or are they subtle and hard to define? What do you smell? ⠀
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Try to group the aromas into clusters like: fruits (🍊citrus, 🍏green, 🍍tropical, 🍑stone, etc), flowers, vegetables, 🥥oak flavours, spices, herbs, etc. ⠀
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What condition does the fruit have? Ripe/unripe, fresh/cooked, dried, etc. ⠀
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👅: Taste⠀
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Swirl the wine around so that it coats your whole mouth. Here we try to measure the following components: ⠀
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Sweetness: Dry, Off-Dry, Medium, Sweet.⠀
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Acid: Low, Med, High. How much does your mouth water?⠀
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Alcohol: Low, Med, High. Does it feel hot on your gums or in your throat?⠀
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Tannin: Low, Med, High.⠀
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Flavour Characteristics: should pretty well match the profile of aromas you detected on the nose. ⠀
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Body: Light, Med or Full. How does the wine FEEL in your mouth? Think of skim vs. whole fat milk or cream.⠀
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Finish: Short, Med, Long. How long do the flavours stay on your palate after swallowing or spitting?⠀
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🧠: Deduce⠀
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What do you think it is based on all of your observations?⠀
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#notawinesnob #sommelier #blindtasting
🙏Please Read!🍷💧
🌍Today I'm off on one of my biggest adventures yet, and I'm filled with excitement and nerves!!
This Friday I'm hosting an event in Nairobi with my new friend @melissa_mwende , a local somm, to raise money for an incredible organisation called Wine To Water. The event will be held at @thewineshopkenya at 6:30pm!
🍷💧Wine To Water (W|W) is an organisation that was started by Doc Hendley, a former bar-tender who started off raising funds to combat the world water crisis by hosting events where he poured wine and played music!
Today, W|W has offices in Arusha, Nepal, the Dominican Republic, and Colombia. In each of these countries, they employ a collaboration of qualified nationals who work full time toward sustainable clean water solutions catered to the specific country’s needs. W|W is also constantly branching into new territories through organisational partnerships and disaster relief preparedness.
www.winetowater.org
🗺️After the event, we'll drive to Arusha to visit W|W's newest field office and water filter ceramics factory. Their ground team will show us how they make the filters and explain how they're used.
🤳We'll share our journey in Insta-stories and use Instagram's DONATION Tool to build in stickers that allow our followers to donate directly to W|W with the click of a button! 100% of donations go to the W|W organisation.
🎁Keep an eye out as well for our W|W Giveaway posts, which will continue to run until Dec 24. We have a number of generous sponsor winery's who've donated incredible wine packages! These will be given away to a number of lucky winners who've donated $10/€10 or more through our donation story stickers.
Follow our journey and please, share it with your family and friends. 🙏Together we can help fight the global water crisis and support life and dignity for all through the power of clean water. @winetowater
#thewinegirl #nairobi #wine #water #globalwatercrisis #fundraiser #sommelier #arusha #tanzania #kenya #cleanwater #watercrisis #giveaway #africa #kenyanwine #support #donate #follow #mission
