Wine Tasting 101

First, results from our last pole shows 58% eat Italian food and 28% of you eat Chinese. Now to our lesson.



Tasting Wine for Beginners

· Look – Hold the glass in front of you and examine the color of the wine (this is best done against a white background like a napkin or table cloth). Tilt the glass slightly to see how the color changes from the center of the glass to the side. Is the wine clear or cloudy? Transparent or opaque?
· Swirl – Give the wine a swirl. This releases the esters, ethers and aldehides that combine with oxygen to yield the bouquet of the wine. Also look to see if the wine has “legs” (narrow streams of wine the run down the side of the glass), this is a good indication of the density or “mouth feel” of the wine.
· Smell – You have only four tastes – sweet, sour, bitter and salty – but the average person can smell 2000 different scents and wine has over 200 of its own.Place the glass up to your nose (don’t be afraid to stick it inside!) and take a deep breath. Close your eyes and try to focus on what you smell. Take a few more whiffs to reinforce your impressions.
· Taste – Taste the wine. Allow it to wash around your mouth for 3-5 seconds before you swallow. Then breath in through your mouth after you swallow. You are looking for the following:
o Texture – Is the mouth feel of the wine. Is it light (like skim milk), medium (like whole milk) or full (like cream)?
o Sweetness – Found at the tip of your tongue. This will be noticed in the first 15 seconds of tasting the wine. Remember most wines have no residual sugar.
o Acidity – Found on the sides of your tough, the cheek area and the back of the throat. This will also be noticed in the first 15 seconds of tasting the wine. White winesand some lighter reds usually have a higher degree of acidity.
o Fruit Characteristics – Found in the middle of the tongue, this will become apparent at between 15 and 30 seconds. All the flavors should be in balance. You shouldhave a good sense of the fruit flavors of the wine and the acidity in the wine should be balanced with the fruit.
o Tannin – Apparent between 15 and 30 seconds, Tannin is a substance found in red wine (and tea) that gives the wine an astringent quality. It is not a taste – it is a sensation. You will sense this first in the middle of your tongue as dryness and it may spread to the whole mouth blocking off the fruit flavors.
o Oak – When a wine is aged in oak, various chemical substances enter the wine from the wood. The most important of these is vanillin that tastes like vanilla. A wine high inoak will have a vanilla aftertaste (often confusing the palate to think it is tasting something sweet). Some wines are so heavy in oak that they almost taste like vanilla ice cream!
o Aftertaste - By about 60 seconds, the wine’s flavors should fade. After 30 seconds, concentrate on how long the flavor lasts. It is the tannin and fruit balance you should be focusedon in the last 30 seconds. If you still sense tannin after 60 seconds, the wine probably needs to age more. Some great wines continue to show balance well past 120 seconds.

Why Are We Here?

Good question. Our focus, as Gourmet Food Company, is to share our culinary knowledge and experiences, and maybe a few recipes along the way, with the community at large and especially our customers and friends in Corona, California.



So what is gourmet? People ask us that same question all the time . To us, gourmet is passion for great food, both creating it and eating it. Anyone can be a cook and anyone can eat food, but the true gourmand views food as more than just sustenance. Food is something that excites all the senses. It is something that can be bring back memories and create new ones. It can fulfill a need far beyond the question "What's for dinner?"



We are proud to be offering a gourmet service company with the hopes that the people who eat (that's all of us) will think about what they are putting in their body and who is preparing it.
Imagine one day we can go to our kitchens and understand what all those utensils are for, what to do with all those seasonings, and oh yeah, can somebody tell me what to do with all those items in the produce section? And if you don't know, but want to know, then we are here to help.