Wine Tasting
Wine April 28th, 2010I generally like the underdog–I like the dark horse. I like trying new things. I guess this is in part why I am here in Bulgaria. On a whole, I think there’s a lot to like here and half of it is figuring out how to access it.
Recently the NYT and other newspapers have been spending time exploring Eastern European wines. There was this article on and another that I can’t find on Slovakian wine (which I am beginning to wonder if I made up because I can’t find it). And these two articles got me thinking about wine and the American interest in Eastern European wine.
Part of the interest seems to rest in the fact that Eastern Europe is relatively unexplored by many Americans but it’s accessible now. People chatter about things like holidays in Prague or Budapest and want to drink wine from these areas as a reminder of their travel. But wine is also a status thing–something to be discovered, discussed and shown off. The more exotic the better. I think that the Eastern European wine craze is a convergence of these two things. (Oh and I think there’s some pretty good wine being made and now, exported to the States as well).
Of course, all of this makes me wonder: what about Bulgaria? But I guess by now this doesn’t surprise you. Well, so what about Bulgaria?
Here’s the thing, I don’t know.
I see lots of Bulgarian wine in grocery stores and shops at the 6 to 20 leva range but I don’t hear much discussion of wine tasting in Bulgaria. Nor do I hear much about wine outside of the under 20 leva price range.
A quick search reveals tasting at Todoroff Winery and a lot of rather questionable “food and wine tours.” One of the questionable food and wine tours has my favorite bad Bulgarian of the day… when “in 1936 Bulgaria got down under Turkish slavery.” I can only assume that Bulgaria was in fact not dancing or enjoying the “Turkish slavery” a lot but I digress.
So what’s the story?
Are there wine shops in Sofia hosting Bulgarian wine tastings? Are there tasting rooms? If a girl had a map, a car and some friends what wineries could we visit? And which ones are worth a visit? Or if the answer is meh, wine isn’t very accessible in Bulgaria–why?
Oh and as a footnote, I’ve been to Melnik five times in less than two years and while I like it, a girl can only go so many times to Bulgaria’s smallest town.
So here’s to trying new things, to learning more about Bulgarian wines (and grapes) and to enjoying spring–spring is after all the seemingly perfect time to spend a Saturday or a weekend wine tasting. Now if I only knew how to go about doing this.
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Wine Tasting
Wine November 18th, 2009Appearance
A good look at the wine can tell us about the condition and even age of the wine.
Clarity: is the wine clear and bright (as it should be) or is it hazy or murky?
Intensity: is the color pale or deep?
Color: hold the glass at an angle against a white background (table cloth or sheet of paper) and assess the color in the middle of the bowl of the glass and at the rim. start life pale and darken with age. out a deep, bright purple and gradually turn ruby, mahogany and eventually brown as they age
Smell or “Nose”
Swirling the wine in the glass allows its aromas to be liberated into the air, so give your glass a whirl and then take a deep sniff. What are you looking for?
Condition: does it smell clean and attractive or is there any mustiness or off-odor?
Intensity: is the nose faint or pronounced?
Character: what does it smell like? This may seem difficult initially, but you can do it. Just as you can tell the difference between the smell of bacon and coffee, you can also identify some of the possible smells in wine. Here are some things you may smell: fruit, grapes, lemon, grass, peaches, raspberries, blackcurrants, flowers, apples, vanilla, oak, smoke, plums and many, many more. Remember that there are no right or wrong answers, here. It’s simply an exercise in thinking about what you’re drinking.
Taste or “palate”
Now the fun part — you actually get to drink the stuff! Take a sip of wine and swirl it around the mouth so that the wine is in contact with all parts of your mouth: tongue, gums, soft palate. Even better, tilt the head forward so that the wine is behind the front teeth and then slurp air into the mouth over the wine. This seems weird at first, and goes against everything your mother taught you to do at the table, but it’s worth it. You can taste much more of the wine if you aerate it in this way.
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Wine Tasting
Wine September 23rd, 2009
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Wine Tasting
Wine March 30th, 2009Wine Tasting Component I: Look
The first step you have to undertake in wine tasting is visual.
1. Fill up the glass up to 1/3 of its volume; never fill it more than half;
2. Hold the glass by the stem. Initially you may find this too pretentious but there are good reasons for it:
а) by doing it this way you can actually observe the wine in it;
b) this will keep your fingerprints off the bowl;
в) the heat from your palm will not change the temperature of the wine.
There’s a good saying by one of the greatest French wine lovers, Emil Painot: Offer someone a glass of wine and you can immediately tell whether he/she is a connoisseur by the way they hold the glass.” Even though you may not think of yourself as a connoisseur, you could still learn how to hold the wine glass.
3. Focus on the color intensity and the transparency of the liquid.
a) the color of the wine, and more specifically its nuances, are best observed on a white background.
b) the wine’s intensity is best judged by holding the glass without slanting it and looking at the liquid from above;
4. Next comes the swirling of the glass. This can also seem too pretentious or even dangerous if you have a full glass or a white top. But this movement is important since it prepares you for the next step in wine tasting – the Taste. The easiest way to swirl the glass is to place it on a table or other even surface, and to swirl your hand while holding the glass by the stem. Swirl hard and have the wine almost touch the rim of the glass. Then stop. The wine leaves tiny traces with irregular shapes on the inside of the glass. Some “experts” then read them with as much zeal as coffee-tellers. The truth is however, that they are just an indicator for the quality of the wine – the more alcohol a wine has, the more wine traces it forms.
What does the color of the wine tell us? The wine’s color tells us many things about its character.
First, the color shows the grape variety. Let’s take two popular varieties as examples – cabernet sauvignon and pinot noir. Cabernet’s grapes are smaller, with a thicker and darker skin than those of pinot noir. As a result, the color of wines made from cabernet sauvignon is usually described as violet to dark while the color of wines made from pinot noir is associated with ruby.
Second, the color is influenced by the climatic conditions. A hot summer and dry fall result in ripe grapes, with a dark, intense color. A cold summer and rainy fall will produce undeveloped grapes with a lighter color.
Third, wine-making practices also have an influence on the color of wine. For red wine, the grapes are fermented with the skin. Since the coloring agents are in the grape skin, and not in the juice, the longer the process of maceration, i.e. the longer the skin stays with the juice, the darker the wine color will be.
Fourth, the process of wine aging also has an influence on the color of wine. The young red wines are rich in coloring agents and that makes their color denser and fuller. In the course of time chemical reactions take place in the bottle and a sediment is formed at the bottom. The wine’s color gets lighter and is often described as brick or amber.
Let’s go through an example: you pour yourself a glass of red wine and after carefully observing it, you notice a full granite color, good density, and not so good transparency. What conclusions can you draw?
Well, you can safely say that the wine is:
- from cabernet sauvignon grapes;
- from a Southern region;
- relatively young;
- from a good yield;
- that the wine-maker has gone for a good long maceration.
If you know the wine, compare what you know with what you see: maybe the wine has a very full color and the yield has been bad – this speaks of a good wine-making technique; or maybe the wine is too pale for its age – this speaks for undeveloped grape or poor wine-making technique.
Refer article (to read complete article, please visit: http://ezinearticles.com/?Wine-Tasting&id=48872
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