How many ways are there to understand quality of a wine?

Today it’s possible to find thousands of different wine brands, various grape types, various wine making styles, various production dates, various distilling ways and more. It’s a good ability especially for men to understand good wine because sometimes you may go to a luxury restaurant with your friends, girlfriend or wife and choose the worst wine or the wine that you never love taste and pay a fortune for nothing. It is hard to be a wine gourmet but it’s not hard to understand a good wine. How many ways are there to understand quality of a wine?


Going on the wine gourmet’s way is perfect to understand wine’s quality. Maybe decisions will be accurate as a gourmet but there will be successful steps for good wine.
First check must be about clarity and color of wine. Especially color may give first hint. Tilt the glass of wine for a little and look to color of wine. If there are deeply different tones between edge rims and middle, you may want different wine.
If tone difference is not high, tilt glass again. Now it’s time to look opacity. When you tilt the wine, if it’s an old and good wine, it will leave some drops on the edge of glass and will paint glass to a softer red. Also if red wine is young it will be in a soft color while an old one is on the darker color.

If wine passes the first test but you have still clues about it, second step is smell test. An educated nose is the perfect tester for wine. Now swirl the wine for 10 seconds at most. It will help to vaporize some alcohol and leave the smell of aroma. Take a quick smell and try to understand the ingredients of aroma. Stop a moment and smell deep with sticking your nose to glass. You will now feel the main aroma of wine. This process helps nose to work on its classic determination way. If you are feeling the main aroma written on bottle perfectly, it’s a good wine. You can repeat the process and try to take different aromas in wine.

If it also passes the smell taste but you don’t want to buy without tasting, you must follow wine gourmet’s list. It’s mainly based on “The Attack Phase”, “The Evolution Phase” and “The Finish.” Tasting test needs some experience but also amateur may take good results.
You must start with “The Attack Phase.” Take a small sip and round it in your mouth. If you are feeling spice or fruit taste first, you must think about this wine again. If you are feeling a harmony or feeling only one taste, it means wine is a good combination of aroma and alcohol. You may also control acidity if wine leaves an acidic feel on your mouth or not. A good wine never leaves an acidic feel.
“The Evolution Phase” is the test of wine on your mid-palate. If you are trying a red wine, when it comes to mid-palate, you must feel firstly fruit taste and then spices. If it’s a good white wine, you must feel firstly spices and then fruit taste. White wine’s taste will be more natural while other is sweeter.
In the “Finish” test, you must test the time flavor stays in your mouth after you swallowed a little. It must be very long if your wine is good and old one.
A good wine doesn’t have to be older and some wine gourmets prefer to drink some wine types’ younger ones.