A GUIDE TO MY TASTING NOTES II: WHAT DID I SEE?

Ask most people what they see in a wine, and you will get a very simple answer: red, white or pink. But there is much more to learn just by looking in your glass, and this is why standard tasting methods always start with a visual review.

HOW DO YOU LOOK AT YOUR WINE?

This may sound like a silly question. Duh, you look at it. But there are important differences between looking straight into the glass from the side with a dark wall in the background, holding the glass up to the light and looking at it from below the bowl, or looking at it using the method most experts recommend.

All you need to properly inspect your wine is a white background, like a blank sheet of printer paper or a white tablecloth, and a clear, plain, stemmed wine glass. Now, I understand that your wine glass collection may be quite different than what I suggested. So let me answer a few of your questions before you ask them.

Can I use a glass without a stem, like a Reidel O glass? Yes, although you can get a better feel for the depth of color if your glass has a stem.
What if I only have faceted, cut glass? This type of glass will cause the light to diffract and have a different effect on the wine's appearance than if you used a straight, clear glass. And the thickness of the glass will also have an effect, reducing the intensity of the light entering the glass. These are fine for when the Queen of England or your local neighborhood billionaire shows up at your Friday night soirée.
What if I only have glasses with designs on them? Well, it depends on how crazy and colorful they are. If they are simply etchings on otherwise flat crystal, there may be little effect. If they are wild and stick out from the glass, they are going to affect how light contacts your wine. Good when you have the boss and her spouse over for dinner. Not so good for observing your wine.
What if my glasses have colorful designs? There will be a noticeable impact on color as light passes through the designs before hitting your wine. Keep them for Friday night parties with your friends.
What if I only have colored wine glasses? Colored glass will make it difficult for you to get a good feel for the color of the wine. You should avoid them if at all possible if you are interested in learning more about your wines. Salsa night a tu casa? Absolutely! Trying to figure out the intensity and color of your wine. Not if you can help it.

All of this leads to one very important question: If I don't have the right type of glass, should I just skip this step? NO! Practicing the skill is important, and the more you do it, the more consistent you will become. But keep in mind that the same wine may look very different in different glasses.

WHAT SHOULD YOU BE LOOKING FOR?

Now that you have a glass and a background, here's what you do next. First of all, don't fill it to the rim with wine. If you have a standard glass with a bowl shape, fill it to just at or slightly above the widest part of the bowl. Hold your glass at a 45-degree angle against the background so that you are looking down into the bowl towards the stem. You are now going to look for a few things. And you can do them in any order you like.

WHAT COLOR IS THE WINE?

Oh, I know, I know, pick me, pick me. It's white! You have just shouted out a style rather than a color. White is a category of wines spanning a wide range of colors, none of which are actually white.

Think about it for a minute. Milk is white. Snow is white. The background of this page is white. But wine isn't actually white in color, or at least you should hope not. Maybe it's lemon yellow. Maybe it's gold. Maybe it's almost clear. Maybe it's cloudy and a little opaque. But white, no. If you find one that is, I'm not sure you should drink it. Similarly, red and rosé are styles. There are many different hues that are the actual colors for wines in these styles.

Which leads us to Rule #3:

RULE 3: DON'T CONFUSE STYLES AND COLORS

So why should you care about what specific color your wine is, rather than just the style? Because the color can tell you many interesting things about a wine. What it isn't likely to tell you is whether the wine is good or not. If the wine is cloudy, you might want to consider whether it could be faulty. But it could equally be an unfiltered or natural wine that is delicious.

What actual color can give you is potential information about the age of the wine, the grape, or even the region the wine comes from. For example, knowing that a wine is white can narrow down the range of possible grapes (although less than you might think, because there are white wines made with red grapes, so-called blanc de noir wines), but it tells you nothing about the age of the wine or where it came from.

But if you have a deep gold wine verging on brown at the edges, now you can make some educated guesses. This wine is likely an older wine, probably from a grape like Chardonnay, maybe from a warmer climate region, and maybe aged in oak. You might expect the wine to have aromas of more tropical fruits, riper fruits, baking spices, toast, honey, butter or cream. But just because a wine is a deeper golden color does not mean it is higher quality. There are very high-quality wines that lean towards the lighter end of the yellow scale.

The same is true for reds. Many people looking at a lighter red will think that it is of lesser quality. But some of the best reds in the world are the Pinot Noirs of Burgundy, and Pinot Noir is lighter in color than grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon or Malbec. And again you see that color has given some indication of both grape (Pinot Noir) and geography (Burgundy, maybe Oregon).

Understanding the full range of what color can mean would take up several posts. Fortunately, there are an almost infinite number of resources online to help you if you want to learn more. Some very helpful options, especially for beginners, are Madeline Puckett's Wine Folly, the Wine Scholar's Guild, and the Wine & Spirit Education Trust.

"OK, already, just tell me about the colors, will you?" Many sites will show you color wheels that look like a paint sample catalog. But we'll keep things simple. Here is how I will show you shorthand colors for each style of wine (white, rosé, and red in that order):

Hopefully, these make some sense to you right off the bat. White shades from green-tinged light yellow to darker brown-yellow. Rosé ranges from Gray (which you will see as Gris, an almost clear rosé) to more orange in tone. And red goes from decidedly purple to a rusty brown.

Yes, there are many other different colors that are variations of or in between the ones above. But we'll leave those for you to work with as you become more and more practiced.

WHAT DON'T YOU NEED TO LOOK FOR?

When you are just getting started with really trying to understand your wine, start simply and don't try to do too much at once. So, while there are a few things other than color and clarity that you can look for, try to stay away from them for a while. Once you are ready, I have listed a few below.

SHE GOT LEGS, SHE KNOWS HOW TO USE THEM

Apologies to ZZ Top, but one of their classics is a perfect intro into other visual characteristics of wine. One that many people have heard about, but most people don't properly understand, is the "legs" or "wine tears" that wine leaves on the sides of the glass. These streaks appear after you bring the glass to your lips and return it to its normal position.

You may have heard that legs are an indication of quality, with thicker legs meaning better wines. Wrong. Legs are an indicator of primarily one thing: alcohol content. The more legs a wine has, they higher the alcohol content of the wine. But that alcohol content is printed right on the bottle's label, so you should already know. Maybe if you ordered BTG (by the glass), you want to look at the legs so that you know if you should actually have that third glass. But otherwise, you aren't getting a lot of additional useful information from the legs.

Legs can also give you information about sugar content in the wine. If you see thick, slowly moving legs, you probably are drinking a sweeter wine like a Sauternes. But seeing thick legs versus thin legs or few legs versus a ton of legs isn't going to tell you if the wine is any good. And they certainly aren't going to tell you if you are going to like it.