This doesn’t quite fit in with a specific lesson, but it needs to be covered. You can’t sniff wine’s aromas if you don’t know how to swirl.
The first point is that you must have the proper wine glass. Glassware manufacturers love to come up with all sorts of fancy things that are lovely to look at, but basically stink when they are used to serve wine. They flare out (or simply straight up) and don’t give you a snowball’s chance in hell of swirling wine without getting it all over yourself.
What’s a proper wine glass? The bowl should have a tulip shape. Plain and simple. I like these, especially the magnum ones.
Next step–learning to swirl. This is what takes practice. Fortunately, the need to practice offers an excuse for drinking wine.
Basically, you want to move the bowl of the glass in a circular motion so it causes the wine to swirl up along the side of the glass. To get started, it may be easier to keep the glass on the table and move the base in a circular motion.
I prefer to do a few good quick swirls to get the wine moving and then take a few sniffs. A few more swirls, a few more sniffs.
Go ahead and take a sip.
The rest is all “rinse and repeat.” Until the glass is empty, anyway. Then you need to interrupt your practice session to refill.
Have any secrets or techniques to share? Leave a comment!
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It’s also helpful to sniff before swirling, to get lighter volatiles that may be masked when you swirl. TCA, from cork taint, is one such aroma - a somm friend told me he never swirls before the first sniff, when checking for flaws.
Also I find it really interesting to sniff the wine when there are just dregs - take what little wine you have and really coat the inside surface of the wine glass, then inhale. Sometimes there are hidden scents that only emerge at this time…. then again sometimes you just get detergent