A Beginner's First Taste in Appreciating Varieties of White Wine

By Nia Lawrence

Most wine tasting events begin with an introduction to the vintner's history and the types of wines they produce. In some instances, the wine tasters already knew the basics of winemaking and the distinctive qualities between the noble expresions of white wine varieties. At other times, the wine specialist has to familiarize a group of beginners with the niche-specific terms used by those working in the wine industry. It's to these individuals that a wine tasting event brings the most significant learning. The organizers normally prepare several samples of noble whites to train the participants in distinguishing wines of varied / terroirs.

Often, classes in wine tasting begin with an explanation of the criteria used to identify and label the characteristics of each white wine. The process always starts with looking at the wine's color and the clarity of its liquid. Young wines often have pale yellow coloring tinged with a light greenish hue. Older whites have a bronze-like color that appears golden or amber in some varieties. Very old wines stored in wooden barrels also have darker hues as well as sediments or floaters.

After determining the clarity and color of the wine samples, tasters move on to identifying the aroma of each variety. Before sniffing its aroma, the white wine is swirled gently inside the glass to get rid of its alcohol vapors that could hurt the nostrils. After ten to twenty seconds of swirling, the wine is now ready to be sniffed once or twice to get a very strong impression of its aroma. Beginners should smell samples of aroma standards before sniffing each wine for comparison. They may bring along a cheat sheet or an aroma chart to help them identify the common standards for whites, such as vanilla, cloves, asparagus, citrus, peach, and honey.

By the / third step, beginners to wine tasting are relatively ready to savor the multi-layered flavours of Riesling, Shiraz, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and others. At this stage, tasting the white wine takes three more phases, which include Attack, Evolution, and Finish. Their names aptly describes the way the flavours of noble wines roll forward from the tongue's first touch to the mid-palate's overwhelming embrace to the finishing impressions of the wine's consistency and taste after swallowing. The Attack stage is where the wine's acidity, alcohol content, bitterness, and sweetness are evaluated first. When another sip of wine is drank, the liquid rolls further inside and washes over hundreds of those tiny taste buds inside the mouth.

During the next stage called "evolution", second impressions in wine tasting come out and reveal more distinctive flavours, such as creamy honey or butter, smoky nuttiness, and crisp apple or peach. At the same time, the wine's consistency also makes itself known through the liquid's movement inside the mouth. A full-bodied white wine feels similar to rolling around a dollop of half-and-half inside your mouth. In contrast, a light-bodied wine has the same consistency as water. Moreover, the wine's "finish", which refer's to the aftertaste, is checked whether or not it lingers or disappears quickly. At the end of the tour, you'll be ready to profile one or two wines you've tasted and compared.

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