How do wines taste correctly? What is the name of this specialist? what he can and cannot do in life so as not to spoil the obon

One of the main conditions is the order of serving wines.
Wines are served in order of age - from young to old. If white and red wines are tasted, then they start with white ones (except when the red wines are very thin, with a complex bouquet).
The second important criterion is glasses.
Professional tasters prefer classic tulip-shaped glasses made of thin and colorless glass. The leg should be long enough so that the palm does not touch the bowl of the glass and does not heat the drink.
The tasting is held in a bright, well-ventilated room. Lighting should be uniform and natural. The most appropriate time of day for an adequate assessment of wine is the morning, when sensory perception is most acute and fresh.
All wines must be uncorked and, if necessary, poured (decanted) in advance. Samples should be served at the appropriate temperature to bring out the bouquet and flavor of each wine.
Guests are given leaflets with short information about the topic of the tasting, the region, specific details regarding the origin of the wines.
Testing wine to determine its merits includes determining appearance, smell and taste. Performing a sequence of operations and considering each impression in turn, taster gains a more complete picture of the properties of wine.
1. Assessing the color of wine. Pour one third of the wine into a clean glass, leaving room for the bouquet of wine to spread. However, you can’t pour less, otherwise the wine will not give enough aroma.
Hold the stem of the glass so that your hand does not block the wine, and tilt it so that you can see the color of the wine, preferably against daylight or against a white tablecloth. Examine the wine and determine its hue, clarity, depth and intensity of its color. Transparency and brilliance speak of the good quality of the wine. According to the density and thickness of the drink drops ("legs") flowing down the walls of the glass, one can make an assumption about alcohol content, extractivity, and sometimes the age of the wine.
2. Determining the aroma of wine divided into 3 waves:
The first wave comes from a drink that is in a calm state. Bring the glass to your nose and take a short shallow breath. This will bring out the fresh fruity aromas of a young wine or the more complex flavors of an old wine.
The second wave is from the "shaken" liquid. Holding the glass by the stem, gently swirl it in a circle to make the wine swirl in the glass. This way, more of the wine will come into contact with the air, which will help bring out the fresh aroma of a young wine, or many of the volatiles found in the bouquet of an older wine, as they are concentrated at the top of the glass. If a young wine is not in a hurry to reveal its bouquet, splash the glass with a short, sharp movement. This action will help bring out the fruity tone in the aroma of the wine. Before tasting wine, smell it again.
And finally - the study of the aroma emanating from the wine remaining on the walls of an empty glass. It is important to feel two lines in the aroma of wine: fruity, coming from the grape berry, and tannic, spicy, which comes from the grape skin and oak barrel.
3. Defining the taste of wine. Wine is poured into the mouth - about a tablespoon - large enough to cover the whole tongue, but so that there is enough room for air in the mouth. By tilting the head forward and pouting the lips, a jet of air is passed through the wine in the mouth so that the flavor and aroma will spread throughout the palate.

In the practice of winemaking, the assessment of the quality and other characteristics of wine is called the term "tasting" (from the Latin gustus - taste). The sommelier conducts a tasting in order to determine what feelings the tested wine will evoke in the consumer. I will talk about some of the subtleties of this almost magical process. You will learn a few tasting secrets that will help you evaluate any wine correctly.

Depending on the goals, the following types of wine tasting are distinguished:

Working - evaluation of the fermented wort for its compliance with the standards. It is carried out in production facilities by technologists, laboratory assistants and experienced workers by taking wine material from containers. The main goal is to determine and control the quality of a future batch of wine.

Production - is done by a group of winery experts in order to approve blends, prepare for the production of new brands of wines and select the best samples for exhibitions. The quality of the wine of any manufacturer directly depends on the competence of its tasting committee, so the production tasting is the most important.

Competitive - is carried out according to the developed rules by independent experts at exhibitions and competitions. The goal is to identify the best samples and reward their manufacturers. This ensures complete anonymity of the competing drinks.

Consumer - guests of the wine cellar first taste all the presented samples of wine, choose the ones they like the most and buy them. This type of tasting has only become popular in recent decades. It is usually combined with a tour of the winery, during which consumers are told about each brand of wine.

Table - held by the participants of the celebration during festive feast. This is the final stage of tasting, summing up the long-term work of the masters who made the wine. At the same time, along with the drink, various snacks are used to complement it.

Stages of wine tasting

Any tasting consists of four phases: preliminary preparation, visual, olfactory and taste perception. We will consider each of them in detail.

one). Preliminary preparation. Wine tasting should be done in a quiet, clean and well-ventilated area. It is desirable to achieve natural lighting, air humidity of 60-70% and a temperature of 19-22°C.

Next, wine glasses are selected correctly, they should be semi-ellipsoidal (“tulip” type), with a volume of 210-225 ml. Also, the following requirements are put forward for glasses: thin walls, absolute transparency and the presence of a long stem. Glasses must be clean and dry before tasting. They are filled by one third (70-80 milliliters) and held by the leg.

Suitable tasting glass

If you plan to taste several different wines during the feast, it is important to follow the order of tasting. General rule- start with light wines and move on to richer ones, from dry to sweet, from young to old. It is recommended to adhere to the following sequence:

  • sparkling (champagne);
  • light white and pink;
  • aged dry whites;
  • young red;
  • aged white dry;
  • aged red;
  • sweet and fortified.

2). Visual phase ("Eye"). Top and side views are evaluated. First, the glass is lowered on the table and look at the surface of the wine. A high-quality drink should shine, and there should not be any particles on its surface.

Next, a glass on a white background is raised to eye level, held straight for a few seconds, and then tilted. This determines the transparency, color of the drink, its shade and the presence of carbon dioxide. The presence of carbon dioxide in a glass is a sign of spoilage (does not apply to champagne).


Visual assessment of wine

Visual tasting of white wine. The brilliance and transparency of a young white wine testifies to its high acidity. Wines with a slightly matte hue contain less acid. A mature drink should have a straw-golden or amber color. If you see a brown or grayish rim on the disc, this is evidence that the wine is dying.

Visual red wine tasting. Drinks of this type have a color from purple to brown. Good young wine is dark ruby, purple, garnet or cherry. Ripe and old wine should be brown or red.

The turbidity or brown color of a young wine indicates its spoilage or non-compliance with production technology. As a general rule, the better the vintage, the richer the color of the wine.

3). Olfactive phase ("Nose"). Wine is poured into a glass without shaking, take a breath and sniff it. In this case, it is important to catch barely perceptible volatile substances and determine their intensity. Good wine has no sediment, sulfur, or fermentation smells.

Evaluation of the aromatic bouquet

Next, you need to twist the glass, holding it by the leg. This will oxygenate the wine and release the aromatics it contains. Then the nose is lowered into the glass and the aroma is inhaled. So determine the individual shades of the smell of the drink.

The wine is then poured out and the empty glass is sniffed to assess the wine's residual aromatic components and its resistance to oxygen. Another study of the aroma of an empty glass (it should not be sharp) gives an idea of ​​the alcohol content in the drink.

four). The phase of taste perception ("Mouth"). A little wine is taken into the mouth. The first sensation caused by a drink is called "attack" by experts. In a good wine, its pronounced taste is immediately felt. After holding the drink in your mouth for a few seconds, open your lips slightly and let in a little air.

Taste rating

Now you should focus on your feelings. Warming up in the mouth, the wine will release aromatic substances. It is at this point that its acidity, sweetness, bitterness and texture can be analyzed.

A metallic taste indicates insufficient acidity, while too strong a viscosity indicates oversaturation with tannin. All components of the wine must be well balanced, the obvious selection of one of them indicates the low quality of the drink.

The aftertaste of wine is a continuation of its taste and aroma effects after a sip. If the wine is of poor quality, then the aftertaste disappears very quickly. It is this fact that deserves close attention when tasting. It is important to remember that the aftertaste does not include a pronounced feeling of strength, richness of tannin and acidity. These are clear signs of bad wine.

Wine tasting requires not only compliance with all the rules, but also experience. An adequate assessment of the proposed sample is impossible without an extensive "base" of comparison imprinted in the memory of a specialist. Therefore, the taster tastes both good and bad wines.

- You need to contact Alexei. Sommelier.
– Excuse me, but does he speak Russian?
Such a question was once asked by visitors to the restaurant "San Michel" to the attendants. I had to explain to them that sommelier is a profession, not a surname. This is the name of a person who understands wines and spirits.


It is not surprising that many have not even heard such a word, because this profession appeared in our country only 10-15 years ago and is not yet very common. Since ancient Rome, wine has been served by special people - sommeliers. They had to be able to present it, pour it into a decanter in time, that is, decant it, and, most importantly, be well versed in the science of wine - oenology. And this meant: to distinguish grape varieties, to know in which barrels the wine is aged, the methods of its production, the categories of wines, etc. Today, sommeliers refer to restaurant employees who are responsible for the supply and storage of wine, wine store employees and managers working in this area.
Alexey Sidorov, who is now the director of the San Michel restaurant in Moscow and, at the same time, the president of the Russian Sommelier Association, was the first representative of this profession in our country.
At that time he worked at the Nostalgie restaurant. At first, people did not understand what was happening: some person dressed in an unusual uniform walks freely around the hall, approaches visitors and tells something about wines, and, most interestingly, tries them. Indeed, without a sample, a sommelier cannot serve a divine drink to a client, since he needs to determine whether it needs to be cooled or vice versa, made warmer, poured into a decanter or left in a bottle, and finally opened correctly. But in Russia, unlike in the West, customers do not trust sommeliers. And many believe that after tasting wine, they should evaluate it, and if they don’t like it, ask for another one. This is fundamentally not true. The client is poured wine so that he is convinced of his gastronomic choice; there can be no doubt about the quality of wine.
For those who want to learn how to understand wines, Alexey Sidorov decided to organize a sommelier school - "Wine World". There are four such educational institutions in Moscow. A. Sidorov's school differs from others in that here the longest training is 3 months; Classes are held 5 times a week for 3.5 hours. After completing the course, students receive diplomas and can do an internship at the San Michele restaurant. School graduates have no problems finding work: every year more and more restaurants, liquor stores, wine trading companies open; therefore, specialists in this field are in high demand. Among the students of the school are not only those who want to become professional sommeliers, but also those who simply want to know more about wine. Some men send their wives to school to learn how to buy good wine. Of course, not everyone is comfortable attending classes so often. Therefore, the school also has individual programs that are especially popular with the regions. Some take 1-2 lessons for 6-7 hours, buy textbooks, stock up on wine lists in order to study this science on their own.

The course is made up of blocks. Each week is devoted to a particular topic: the history of winemaking, wines from Spain, France, Italy, the New World, spirits, etc. Classes are held in psychology and etiquette. Indeed, in order to give advice, a sommelier must understand at a glance what a particular person will like. Also, the sommelier must understand cigars, which is also taught at school. If a student misses a week, then he can listen to the missed topic with the next group. All classes include wine tasting. For the entire course, students try more than 100 different drinks, about 3-4 varieties of 25-30 ml per day. Alexey assures that one does not need special talent to master the profession of a sommelier. All taste buds develop, you just need to constantly train them.
There are no more than 14 people in the class. In parallel, several groups are studying: morning, afternoon, and evening will soon be open. In total, 8-9 groups pass in a year. The cost of training is from 150 to 1000 dollars. You can choose individual topics, and thus pay only for the material covered. This price includes everything: wine tasting, teaching aids, and watching foreign videotapes. Foreign experts who come to Russia for various events give lectures at the school. Over the course of three months, more than fifteen teachers from Moscow and Russia conducted classes at the Wine World Center.

Different alcoholic drinks need to be tasted in different ways, the taster knows all the features. For such work, you need to have a good sense of smell, memory and taste buds. What else you need to know in order to evaluate the quality, this article will tell.

Interesting! When did the wine taster appear? The profession originated in ancient times, when noble families hired people to test drinks and food for poison.

Rules for professional tasting

Tasting should take place after the main meal. It should be 11 o'clock in the afternoon or 5 o'clock in the afternoon. You need to taste from simple drinks ending with complex ones. So, dry and young wines are first tasted, then, and more aged.

Each type of drink has its own. They help to maximize the taste of alcohol. It is better to take tulip-shaped crystal glasses. The thinner the walls of the crystal, the better. The leg should be the size of a brush, thin, comfortable in the hand. This is important, because the taster holds the glass only by the leg, so that the glass does not heat up, and there are no fingerprints on the walls.

It is better to remove the cork in advance to allow the drink to open. Alcohol is poured into the glass by one third, so that it is convenient to rotate it, revealing the aromatic notes in the wine. By the method of serving, the professionalism of the waiter or sommelier in the restaurant is determined.

A person who understands wines begins the assessment of quality with an inspection. The glass is brought to eye level, the color saturation is assessed. Saturation is best assessed against the background of something light, a sheet of paper, for example. There should be no streaks or haze in the glass. The liquid must be shaken so that it is distributed along the walls of the vessel. So-called "wine legs" then remain on the glasses. Anyone who understands wines knows that they determine the quality and alcohol content. The longer the divorces remain, the richer and stronger it is.

The penultimate step is to evaluate the smell. Aromas of wines are different: floral, spicy or fruity. Depending on the complexity of the bouquet, you can determine the degree of exposure. Young drinks have a monosyllabic aroma, aged drinks have a complex multi-level aroma.

Important! What is the name of a person who tastes wine? Cavist, wine critic, sommelier, wine taster. What is the correct name of the profession? All names are correct, it's just that everyone specializes in different directions. You can become a specialist through master classes, wine schools.

General organoleptic analysis

Organoleptic analysis is called analysis using taste buds, vision, smell, touch.

Transparency

There are two rules for tasting and evaluating transparency: in the light and in a dark room. In the first case, the glass is placed between the light source and the eyes, the turbidity of the drink, the reflection of particles are considered.

The second method allows you to analyze drinks of deep colors. Reds, for example, are examined in dark rooms, characterized by a decreasing degree of transparency. Making wines in oak barrels give a precipitate, but it indicates good quality, and not about the spoilage of the product.

Color

The color can be red, white or pink. For example, when tasting Massandra wines, it is especially important to evaluate the quality and saturation of additional shades. This is done against the background of a white tablecloth or light paper.

The taste of wine

These characteristics include sweetness, acidity, astringency, fullness and alcohol content. There are drinkable types that leave an aftertaste in the mouth, there are light ones that contain little alcohol, but have a rich color and a noble taste. A soft drink is called a drink without a pronounced taste, without acidity. There are dozens of such characteristics: sluggish, oily, velvety, green, early.

Important: wine tasting in Moscow is carried out in wine cellars, gastronomic and wine bars. Alcohol is tasted in St. Petersburg in specialized restaurants and bars.

A person who tastes wines must constantly learn, since it is almost impossible to achieve all the knowledge about grape varieties, methods of making drinks. You can order a wine tasting with a visit to a certain place, but they also taste alcohol at home, remembering a few simple rules and features of the drink.

Wine taster is not a profession for everyone. Why? - you ask. Well, if only because the taster must have a number of both acquired skills and the skills inherent in him by nature.

What is so special about the taster? Let's start with the fact that a person involved in this business must have a high organoleptic sensitivity from birth, that is, subtly notice the difference between various smells, tastes, must perfectly distinguish colors and even sounds. He must have a good memory to memorize the various parameters of various varieties of a noble drink.

In addition to all this, the wine taster must, in the course of his training, build up in his memory a huge knowledge base about the tastes, smells, colors of various wines. Must learn to quickly extract the necessary information from existing knowledge for the fastest and most accurate assessment of the product under investigation. The taster must have a good imagination to draw a more complete picture. Also, for this, he needs to clearly and clearly express his thoughts so that the listener can feel the taste and aroma of wine without even tasting it.

And where can you learn all this if you, for example, have the ability? A wine taster is such a rare profession in Russia that it can be mastered in a small number of institutions, despite the fact that a wine taster has always been in demand in “our vast”. You can become a taster after undergoing special training at an enterprise that organizes such courses, and after graduation (not the fact that you will finish) you receive a taster certificate and an invitation to work in the same company.

There is another way - to graduate from a university with a degree in technology Food Industry". And if you have all the qualities of a true taster, then as a specialist you will not be worth the price, because you will be able to combine both organoleptic perception and technological knowledge, that is, give advice on wine production technology to obtain a better product.

Often people have a simple question: “What is the name of the profession of a wine taster?” Many mistakenly believe that a wine taster is, but there are significant differences between them. A sommelier is like a wine waiter. He must work with the wine list, select a range of wines, recommend wines to customers according to their chosen dishes, and serve wines according to etiquette. A sommelier is attached to a particular restaurant and cannot be a kind of "freelancer", unlike a taster. The taster is mainly aimed at helping businesses, and the sommelier is aimed at helping consumers.

Let's recap.

Wine taster profession is difficult, but interesting and highly paid. Only a special person can work as a taster.

The duties of a wine taster include:
– assessment of the state of the proposed wine or wine material;

– analysis of taste and aromatic components of the product;

- comparing the taste and aroma of wine with the standards stored in the taster's memory;

– it is not necessary, but it is desirable to indicate the possible cost of wine, based on analogues;

- give advice on production technology and aging of a product.