How to Taste Wine Like a Sommelier

Wine tasting isn't about pretension or showing off—it's about paying attention. Professional sommeliers use a systematic approach to evaluate wines, building a vocabulary and memory bank that helps them identify, assess, and recommend wines. You can learn these same techniques to deepen your own wine appreciation.

Setting Up for Success

Before evaluating any wine, ensure you have the right conditions for accurate assessment.

The Right Glass

A proper wine glass makes a significant difference. Use a clear, stemmed glass with a bowl that tapers toward the rim. This shape concentrates aromas and allows you to observe the wine clearly. For Pinot Noir, a larger bowl (often called a Burgundy glass) provides more surface area for the wine to interact with air.

Appropriate Lighting

Natural daylight or neutral white light is ideal for assessing wine colour and clarity. Avoid coloured lighting, candlelight, or very dim conditions when you're trying to evaluate a wine seriously. A white background (a napkin or piece of paper) helps when observing colour.

Neutral Environment

Strong competing aromas interfere with wine assessment. Avoid heavy perfumes, scented candles, cooking odours, or smoking areas when tasting seriously. Your environment should be as neutral as possible.

Step 1: Appearance

Begin your evaluation before the wine ever touches your lips. Visual inspection reveals important information about the wine's age, concentration, and potential quality.

Colour

Hold the glass at a 45-degree angle against a white background and observe the wine's colour. For Pinot Noir, you're looking at the core colour and the rim variation.

Young Pinot Noir typically shows ruby or garnet hues with purple tints at the rim. As the wine ages, it evolves toward brick red, then amber at the edge. A wine with brown or tawny colours throughout is likely old or poorly stored.

Intensity

Pinot Noir is characteristically lighter in colour than other red wines due to its thin grape skins. However, intensity can still vary. A pale, translucent wine suggests cool climate origins or lighter winemaking. Deeper colour might indicate warmer sites, riper fruit, or certain winemaking techniques.

Clarity and Viscosity

The wine should be clear and bright. Haziness may indicate a fault (though some natural wines are intentionally cloudy). Swirl the glass and observe the "legs" or "tears" that form on the glass—higher alcohol and residual sugar create more pronounced legs.

Step 2: Nose (Aromas)

The nose reveals more about a wine than any other evaluation step. Take your time here—first impressions matter, but so does allowing the wine to open in the glass.

First Sniff (Still Glass)

Before swirling, take a gentle sniff with the glass still. This captures the most delicate, volatile aromas that might dissipate after agitation. Note your first impressions—are they fruity, earthy, floral, oaky?

Swirl and Sniff

Gently swirl the glass to release more aromatic compounds. This introduces oxygen and increases surface area, allowing more complex aromas to emerge. Take several short sniffs rather than one long inhale—your olfactory receptors tire quickly.

Identifying Aromas

Aromas typically fall into categories:

• Primary (Fruit/Floral): Aromas from the grape itself. Pinot Noir often shows cherry, raspberry, strawberry, and sometimes rose petal or violet
• Secondary (Winemaking): Aromas from fermentation and oak treatment. Look for vanilla, toast, smoke, or bread-like notes
• Tertiary (Aging): Developed aromas from bottle age. Mushroom, forest floor, leather, and truffle are classic aged Pinot characteristics

Step 3: Palate (Taste and Texture)

Finally, take wine into your mouth. But don't just gulp—work the wine around your mouth and pay attention to multiple elements.

The Initial Sip

Take a moderate sip and let the wine coat your entire palate. Your tongue detects different taste sensations in different areas, and allowing complete coverage ensures you experience everything the wine offers.

Sweetness

Detected at the tip of the tongue. Most Pinot Noir is dry, meaning fermented to completion with no residual sugar. However, ripe fruit can create an impression of sweetness even in technically dry wines.

Acidity

Perceived as a tart, mouth-watering sensation along the sides of the tongue. Good acidity makes wine feel fresh and lively. Pinot Noir typically shows moderate to high acidity, which is essential for food pairing and aging potential.

Tannins

Tannins create a drying, gripping sensation on your gums and inner cheeks. Pinot Noir has lower tannins than many red wines due to its thin skins, resulting in a silky, smooth texture. Quality tannins feel fine-grained rather than harsh or chalky.

Body

Body refers to the wine's weight and texture in the mouth. Pinot Noir typically ranges from light to medium-bodied, feeling lighter than Shiraz or Cabernet. Consider whether the wine feels delicate, substantial, or somewhere between.

Flavour Intensity and Characteristics

Note the intensity and type of flavours you experience. Are they concentrated or subtle? Do they confirm what you smelled, or reveal new elements? The palate should ideally confirm and expand upon the aromatic impressions.

Finish

After swallowing (or spitting in professional contexts), observe how long flavours persist. A long finish, measured in seconds, generally indicates quality. Note whether the finish is clean and pleasant or shows any off-putting characteristics.

Step 4: Conclusions

After systematically evaluating appearance, nose, and palate, draw your conclusions about the wine.

Quality Assessment

Consider whether the wine shows balance—are sweetness, acidity, tannins, and alcohol in harmony? Does it show complexity, with multiple layers of aroma and flavour? Is the finish long and pleasant? Quality wines demonstrate balance, complexity, concentration, and expressiveness.

Style Identification

Based on your observations, can you identify the wine's style? A light, bright, high-acid Pinot Noir might suggest Tasmanian origins. A fuller, more savoury example could be from Mornington Peninsula. Building these associations takes practice but develops over time.

Personal Enjoyment

Finally, consider whether you enjoy the wine. Technical quality and personal preference don't always align, and that's perfectly fine. Knowing what you like helps you make better purchasing decisions, which is the practical application of tasting skills.

Common Tasting Mistakes

• Rushing the evaluation: Take your time. First impressions are important, but wines often reveal more complexity as they open up
• Filling the glass too full: Pour only to the widest part of the bowl, leaving room for swirling and aroma concentration
• Ignoring temperature: Wine served too cold will seem muted; too warm and it will seem unbalanced
• Expecting to identify everything: Even professionals don't catch every nuance. Focus on the most prominent characteristics
• Comparing to expectations: Evaluate the wine in front of you, not what you expected or hoped it would be

Developing Your Skills

Wine tasting improves with practice. Here are ways to develop your abilities:

Taste Regularly and Attentively

Every glass of wine is an opportunity to practice. Even casual drinking can be educational if you pay attention. Try to identify three or four specific things about each wine you drink.

Taste Comparatively

Tasting wines side by side is tremendously educational. Compare two Pinot Noirs from different regions, or the same wine from different vintages. Differences become much clearer when you have direct comparisons.

Taste Blind

Having someone else pour wines without revealing their identity removes preconceptions and forces you to rely on your senses. Even simple blind tastings are illuminating.

Join Tasting Groups

Discussing wines with others exposes you to different perspectives and vocabulary. You'll notice things others point out that you might have missed, and your observations can help others too.

Practice Exercise: Pinot Noir Tasting

Put these techniques into practice with this structured exercise:

1. Select two Australian Pinot Noirs from different regions (e.g., Yarra Valley and Tasmania)
2. Pour each into appropriate glasses, side by side
3. Evaluate appearance: Note colour, intensity, and clarity for each
4. Evaluate nose: Identify primary, secondary, and tertiary aromas
5. Evaluate palate: Assess sweetness, acidity, tannins, body, and flavour
6. Draw conclusions: Which shows more typicity? Which do you prefer?
7. Write notes: Record your observations for future reference

Repeat this exercise regularly with different wines, and you'll find your tasting skills developing rapidly. Welcome to a lifetime of wine discovery.