Steps to Follow During the Home Tasting
1) Look at the wine(s) you are about to taste. Hold them up to the light or next to a white background. Look for how pale or intense the color is. Platinum or pale yellow in a white wine or a light ruby color in a red wine indicate lighter and more acidic wines. Deep yellow or gold in a white wine and intense purple in a red wine signal less acidic and fuller bodied wines.
2) Swirl the glass and watch for legs running down the sides of the glass. The more legs and the thicker they are indicate higher alcohol levels.
3) Put your nose in the wine glass and inhale deeply. Decide whether the smell is pleasant to you, neutral or offensive and what about the aroma makes it so.
4) Taste the wine and swish it around in your mouth. Don't judge whether you like the taste of the wine yet. Either swallow the wine or spit it out. This is to cleanse your taste buds from whatever you had in your mouth last (food, toothpaste, another wine). Then re-taste the wine with a small sip, try to identify its flavors, then swallow. Try to judge how long the taste of the wine stays in your mouth (five seconds is short, 30 seconds is long). That is known as the finish.
5) Decide if you like the wine and what about it you like or dislike. Try to write down your comments and how you would rate it compared to any other wines you have recently tasted. A simple scale of "dislike", "drinkable," or "like" is sufficient: Circle your rating under the type of each wine:
"NO WAY" I would want to drink this wine on a regular basis.
"OK" I'll drink it if someone gives it to me or serves it at a function I'm attending.
"I'LL PAY" I would purchase that wine for drinking at home or for a special occasion.
6) Repeat the process with the next wine in the pair. Then move on to the next pair.
7) After tasting all of the wines, taste them again with the foods. Eat a small bite of food and then a small sip of wine. Decide if the wine tastes better with the food, clashes with it or if the food tastes better or worse.
8) First compare the acidic wines with the more acidic foods, then the low acid wines with the more savory foods and then the medium acid wines with each food. Decide if matching the wines and food to acidity levels is better or contrasting the acidity on the wines with the acidity of the foods is better or if it doesn't really make a difference.
9) Decide if any wine/food combination(s) you really liked changed your mind about how you rated a specific wine as a stand-alone wine. If it did, write comments on the sheet to that effect.
10) If you learned something dramatic (had an ah ha moment) about your wine likes/dislikes or wine food pairing insights, you may want to repeat this type of tasting with friends again using the same or different wines.
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