Selecting a good wine when you're an amateur can be a little difficult. This guide will supply you with some useful tips and techniques.
Any experienced sommelier would inform you that the persistence and complexity of an excellent wine is what distinguishes it from more budget-friendly offerings as standardised wine normally does not have these differentiating attributes. In this context, going through a wine list won't assist much as you require to taste the wine to really figure out whether the taste is right. Usually, the taste of a good red or white wine lingers on and evolves as an aftertaste for a minimum of 5 seconds. As such, if you can't pick any flavour as quickly as you put your glass down, then it's most likely that the wine is of a lower quality. When it comes to intricacy, when tasting the wine, the taste profile ought to develop with every sip so if you can identify these alterations when they take place, they you've got yourself a winner. On the other hand, individuals like James Tanner would concur that if a wine is too flat and does not alter much, then it's most likely a cheaper product.
As a beginner, you can quickly get overwhelmed by the range of wines readily available on the marketplace. It would be a shame to prepare a nice meal just to pick a bottle of wine that isn't up to par, but fortunately, enthusiasts like Matt Fowles would inform you that are a few tell-tale signs that imply whether a wine is of a higher quality or a rather cheap wine. One essential aspect you have to take notice of is colour. The colour of the red or white wine must correspond to the wine type you wish to buy. For instance, a young white wine must be rather pale in colour so if you're examining a glass of white and you find it to be too sombre, it's likely rusty and it is best to try to avoid it. Same logic applies to reds. If it's a shade of violet than it is best to skip it.
Known vignerons like Róbert Wessman would confirm that one of the safest ways to determine whether a red or a white wine is of a superior quality is the mix of taste and odour. A great red wine or white wine must smell extremely comparable to the scent of its main components, so if you take a sniff of your glass and pick up notes of berries and flowers instead of an unique vinegar odour, then you've hit the mark as these are signs of a top quality wine. Though the smell alone might assist you decide, the tandem of smell and taste is generally what gives the last verdict. In the case of premium wines, joining both elements need to total up to a healthy whole. For example, the best red wine shouldn't have an excess of a woody taste as that would suggest that the liquid had actually been left in the barrels for a long time without being aerated.