Alok Chandra: A wine tasting

Tasting wine is more complex than drinking wine

Drinking wine is simple: just tilt the glass and swallow, and repeat till the bottle is finished. Tasting wine is more complex: the wines need to be at the right temperature, you should have good wine glasses and the wines themselves should be worth it. Then, one needs to go through the five essential steps of wine tasting: see, swirl, sniff, sip, and savour. Some will add a sixth step: spit ? useful if you are tasting anything more than three or four wines and don?t want to end up under the table by the end of the session.

First, the temperature. While we all know that ros? and whites and sparkling wines should be served cold, there?s this misconception about serving reds ?at room temperature? ? that should be the room temperature of Europe, 16 to 18 degrees C, and not of India. It is best to just chill all your wines ? and warm up the reds if you find them too cold.

Next, the wine glasses. A good wineglass (big bowl, long stem, plain glass, not coloured or cut-glass) plays an enormous role in appreciating a wine. The curved bowl serves to concentrate aromas, while the long stem ensures that the wine?s temperatures do not get warmed by holding the bowl.

When tasting, it?s best to fill the wine glass only one-thirds so as to enable swirling of the wine without spilling it (no use spoiling that good shirt or dress!). Hold the wine glass at an angle against a light background to see the liquid and the rim ? the wine should not be hazy, young whites should not be yellow and in reds, a firm rim indicates good body.

Swirl the wine to release the aromas and you should be able to smell what the wine is all about: fruits, flowers, herbs and spices, vegetal notes in some whites, and aromas of wood/ nuts/ chocolate/ caramel from barrel-aging in the reds. Beware: if there?s little or no aroma, the wine is probably quite ordinary and will not reward further investigation. And, off-notes indicate a spoilt wine.

You finally tastes the wine to confirm what the nose has already told you, and to look into what it cannot. The tongue can detect only five tastes: sweet, salt, sour, bitter, and umami (spicy) ? all the other attributes are detected by the nose, so tasting will indicate how dry (non-sweet) the wine is, its mouthfeel (light, medium, or full-bodied), how soft or firm the tannins are in the reds, acidity or tartness, and whether the taste lingers (or not). Above all, we get to understand balance and complexity.

I attended a fairly elaborate tasting recently, organised at Olive Beach restaurant in Bengaluru by an importer: 25 wines, spread over six tasting stations by country of origin, with people walking around tasting wines as if in a wine fair.

Three wines stood out:
Dominio del Plata CRIOS Torrontes (2016): The signature white wine grape of Argentina, with the wine produced by the ?Queen of Torront?s? Susana Balbo. Flowers and peach on the nose, with a well-balanced minerality ? 90 points by Robert Parker and ~2,485 in Bengaluru.

Cabriz Dao Sul, Seleccionada (2014): One of the top value wines in the world. This Portuguese wine is made from relatively unknown grapes (Tinta Roriz, Touriga Nacional) but delivers a tremendous aroma (red fruit, berries, jam, spices, toast) and a soft, fruity taste that?s just terrific. The 2014 vintage was # 46 on Wine Spectators? Top 100 wines of 2016 with 90 points ? priced at ~1,481 in Bengaluru.

Chateau de Saint Cosme Gigondas (2013): The 2010 vintage was # 2 on the Wine Spectator Top 100 list of 2012. This 90-point wine (~6,311 in Bengaluru) has a wonderfully complex aroma of berries, blackcurrants, liquorice and pepper with a full-bodied taste and very long finish. Alok Chandra is a Bengaluru-based wine consultant