Wine Tasting Book for Beginners: Ultimate Wine Tasting Guide
Rebecca Thomas
Copyright
© 2012 by Rebecca Thomas
ISBN 9781456611545
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, copied, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photographic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or in any information storage and retrieval systems, without prior written permission of the author or publisher, except where permitted by law.
Terms of Use
The publisher of this book and the accompanying materials have used their best efforts in preparing this book. The publisher make no representation or warranties with respect to the accuracy, applicability, fitness, or completeness of the contents of this book. The information contained in this book is strictly for educational purposes. Therefore, if you wish to apply ideas contained in this book, you are taking full responsibility for your actions.
The publisher disclaim any warranties (express or implied), merchantability, or fitness for any particular purpose. The author and publisher shall in no event be held liable to any party for any direct, indirect, punitive, special, incidental or other consequential damages arising directly or indirectly from any use of this material, which is provided “as is”, and without warranties.
Contents
Brief History
About Wine
Flavors of Wine
Wine Production
Uses of Wine
Glassware
The Methodology of Wine Tasting
Considerations During Tasting
How to Host a Wine Tasting Party
Wine Ratings
How to Serve Wine
Serving Wine – Quick Tips
Conclusion
Brief History
In high society, wine tasting is considered a luxurious way to pass one’s time when in the presence of similarly well-off company.
Nowadays, it’s accepted in most any social class. Naturally, you can’t just jump into wine tasting. You must first gain basic knowledge about the drink and learn how to properly taste it.
Surprisingly, wine tasting can be considered a trainable skill.
Learning about wine is simple. It comes in innumerable varieties and from locales all across the world. To measure wines against one another, you must be familiar with these numerous concoctions.
If you want to really stand out among fellow practitioners, you may also consider learning serving techniques. The contents of this e-book hope to make available to you all the pertinent information to wine tasting.
About Wine
If you didn’t already know, wine is made by fermenting grapes with yeast. The yeast chemically modifies the sugars in the grapes to become alcohol.
Because of several other chemical properties of grapes, they don’t require any additives for fermentation. So to speak, they naturally ferment. However, all grapes are not equal.
Generally, your output is directly affected by your input (type of grapes). If you want, you can mix several different kinds of grapes to get a unique flavor.
Wine seems to have originated around 6000 BC in Middle Eastern countries in the area of Iran, Georgia, and Israel.
Another thousand years before then, grapes and rice were being mixed together and fermented to create what serves as the ancestor of what we know today as rice wine.
European wine is much younger, only beginning circulation around 4500 BC, though the calculation of that date is heavily susceptible to human error.
Greece was among one of the earliest sites to contain traces of depictions of alcohol, and this may be where the system of crushing grapes was developed. After the discovery of wine, it gained strong footing in spiritual practices.
The ancient Egyptians often incorporated the alcoholic beverage into their ceremonial processions, and it is an integral part of mass for the Roman Catholic Church even today. Despite widespread acclaim, wine has experienced some road bumps during its large history.
At one point, it was even outright forbidden, but that sentiment faded away when distillation opened the door for therapeutic wine uses.
Types of Grapes
As we’ve already discussed, there are numerous “species” of grapes, each giving the wine a particular flavor. The most common variety of grape used in wines is Vitis vinifera. Using this particular grape, there are multiple possible outcomes. They are Chardonnay, Merlot, and Pinot Noir.
You’re most likely to find the Vitis vinifera species growing naturally in the Rhone Valley or Bordeaux, both located in France.
That two wines are of the same vintage are not necessarily the same species. This implies that wines from the same vintage can also be created from a mixture of multiple species of grapes.
This process ends in what is known as hybrid wines. One such example is Concord grape can be bred from a wide array of grape species, as follows: Vitis labrusca, Vitis rupestris, Vitis aestivalis, Vitis riparia, and Vitis rotundiafolia.
They’re primarily grown in North America and are likely the variety you’ll find for sale at the market.
These types of grapes are also what you can expect to find in secondary products such as juices and jellies.
How Wine is Classified
Different regions have different systems for grouping different wines. Based on that sentence alone, there’s a lot of differentiation to be expected! Many of these differences are on account of government regulations meant to both inform and protect consumers.
The European system of classification is region-based; that is, wines imported from other countries are labeled as such.
Most other non-European countries prefer to classify wines based on physical properties. That is, what kinds of grapes went into the production of the wine.
The Merlot and Pinot Noir discussed earlier are two wines that fermented using different grapes.
Although Europe seemed to initially be a minority in terms of the methodology of their wine classification, more and more are we seeing other countries adopt systems based on region rather than the species of grape.
This system has been expanded on to include not just the name of the country, but the name of the vineyard
