SEE, SWIRL, SNIFF, SIP - your guide to wine tasting

When first tasting a wine – be it at a wine tasting or when the waiter presents you with that first mini pour at a restaurant – it is handy to remember the 4 S’s.

SEE – Look at your wine. To check the colour of a wine, tilt the glass at a 45 degree angle away from you and look through the deepest part of the liquid against something white like a tablecloth or napkin. There are things you can tell about the colour of a wine – it gives you a clue about a wine’s age, with red wines getting paler with age and white wines getting darker. It can also give you hints about wine-making techniques that may have been used.

…But really, as long as this isn’t a blind-tasting you can just check the age on the bottle.

So why look? For wine faults such as haziness (unless it’s a natural wine) or unexpected particles, as well as to check there’s no bits of cork or an errant fly you don’t want to swallow.

SWIRL – Move the glass in a circular motion so the wine swirls around. If you don’t feel confident doing this in the air then keep the glass on the table and move the base around. Just be sure not to do this with a full glass of wine!

Why do we do this? It helps to open up a wine - giving it some contact with oxygen and releasing its aromas. Which of course leads to the ….

SNIFF - Put your nose into the glass and take a deep sniff. My top tip is to put your nose to the top of the rim of your glass so your face blocks most of the bowl, rather than just peek it over the bottom edge where you’d usually sip. I have a small nose and for me, this helps me get the most out of the aromas as they rise.

What we taste is linked to what we smell – the senses are bound up together – so getting the most out of the scent of a wine is going to mean a better experience altogether. It helps to be thinking of categories while you take those deep sniffs such as floral or herbal. For white wines think of citrus fruit, green fruit, stone fruit, tropical fruit and minerality or wet stones. For red wines think of red fruits like red cherries and strawberries or black fruits like bramble and plum.

Then there are scents which will give you a hint about how the winemaker has made the wine such as the use of Oak which can give aromas ranging from vanilla to cedar to smoke to cloves to coconut to toast. Or scents that imply aging, for example a white wine will often show aromas and flavours of honey, nuts, hay and petrol whereas a red wine may show tobacco, game, mushroom, forest floor and leather.

You’ll also want to check the wine doesn’t smell off – a tell-tale sign that something is wrong is a scent like damp cardboard. If you smell this, ask the waiter to smell it too and check there isn’t a fault.

SIP – Finally! Take a small sip of your wine and if you want to do some pro-style wine tasting prepare to look a little odd to your date.

Keep a little of the wine in a pool on your tongue, purse your lips and gently suck air over the top of the wine in your mouth. It will make a deeply sexy slight slurping noise. Swish the wine around your mouth so it hits all the taste buds on your tongue and swallow.

And why do we do such a thing? Like the swirl, it allows oxygen to get into the wine and open up the flavours more. With the scents you’ve got in your mind see if you can taste them even more. The warmth of your mouth can release other new flavours too and you might get a hint of other winemaking techniques – such as malolactic fermentation which makes the wine feel and taste more buttery or creamy.

You should be able to tell if a wine has high acidity if your mouth starts to fill with saliva, or high in tannin if your teeth and tongue feel dry. Both of these things are useful to know for what to pair with your wine or how long it might be able to age if you’ve bought more than one bottle ... which I’ll write about further down the line.

CONCLUSION – As long as you’re happy with the wine and it doesn’t smell or taste like a damp mouse (another wine fault) then this is when you give the waiter the nod to top up the glasses.

The more you taste with intention and attention the more flavours and aromas you will get out of your wine experience and the better you will begin to know what you like and which wines pair best with which food. Remember – practise makes perfect!