Three steps: look, smell, taste. About thirty seconds longer than what you're already doing.
Written by Missy WineSydney · 3 min read
You swirl the glass because everyone else does, take a sip, and think "yep, that's wine."
Nothing wrong with that. But there's an actual method here, and it's not complicated. WSET and The Wine Society, two of the bigger names in wine education, both break it down the same way: look, smell, taste. In that order.
None of it needs a trained palate. It's just paying attention on purpose instead of by accident.
The three steps
One
Tilt it against something white
Hold the glass over a napkin or anything pale and check the colour near the rim, where the wine's thinnest. Whites drift from pale yellow toward gold as they age. Reds start bright and turn brick over time. That's it. No test, just a first look before you drink.
Two
Swirl on the table, then get your nose right in
Give the glass a gentle swirl, on the table rather than in the air, to get the aromas moving. Then put your nose right into the glass and take a proper sniff, not a polite one. Citrus, red berries, something more like toast or vanilla, there's no wrong answer.
Try thisSniff once before you swirl and once after. You'll notice the swirl actually does something.
Three
Most of what you call flavour is actually smell
Take a proper sip, enough to cover your whole tongue, and hold it a second before swallowing. Notice the obvious stuff first: sweet, sour, bitter, that dry grip on your gums (that's tannin). Then swallow and see what's left behind. Good wine lingers. Cheap wine tends to just vanish.
Try thisWith wine still in your mouth, breathe out gently through your nose. That's retronasal olfaction, and it's the actual trick behind "tasting notes". It pushes aroma up the back of your throat into your nose, which is where most of the flavour really comes from.
Your tongue only picks up five things: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami. Everything else you'd call a "flavour", cherry, leather, wet stone, whatever, is smell. It just arrives through the back of your throat instead of the front of your nose. That's the whole trick behind step three.
Works the same whether the bottle cost $15 or $150. What changes is what you notice, not the method.
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