Wine and Stampede!

Stampede is here and the city is swarming with cowboy hats, jeans, belt buckles and boots! This is my first Stampede as we just moved to Calgary a month ago. I have purchased a hat, belt and bandannas in every colour imaginable.

I will be hosting weekly wine seminars for the serving staff at work so my blog will be updated much more regularly. My first wine seminar is this Saturday. We will be tasting 4 bottles of wine, two whites and two reds. I am going to pick two very different whites and two very different reds. My goal for the seminar is to make the servers more comfortable and confident with selling wine when they are at their tables. This Saturday I will cover the following topics, How to properly taste wine to get the full experience, How to describe specific flavours detected in a wine, and some wine and food pairing guidelines.

During the tasting process, once you are past the swirl and smell process and you actually get to taste the wine there are 3 phases once the wine is in your mouth, the front, middle, and back palate.

The first phase is the initial impression that the wine leaves on your palate. You will not notice flavours in this phase but rather weight and texture. You will feel the wine in your mouth for a second and notice whether it is light like water or heavy like milk. Whether the tannins are strong (That pucker feeling) or soft and subtle, if the wine is very acidic (tart) or flat and the overall sweetness level of the wine. Is the wine very dry or slightly sweet? If the wine's alcohol content is too high, too low, or just right. The weight, tannins, acidity, sweetness and alcohol levels should be well balanced, one should not dominate over any other. If everything is well balanced it is a good sign that you are tasting quality wine.

After the first impression you will start to notice the distinct flavours of the wine on your palate. This is the second phase. Let the wine roll around on your tongue for a few seconds and concentrate on what distinct flavours you are detecting. If you are tasting a red wine, do you taste berries, smoke, chocolate, plums, coffee, pepper, raspberry, etc...?
If you are tasting a white wine, do you taste butter, citrus fruits, grass, flowers, apples, pears, herbs, etc...?

In the third and final phase of the taste properly referred to as "The finish" You will see how long the flavour impression lasts after it is swallowed. You will also notice if any other flavours present themselves during the aftertaste. If the finish is long and pleasant, it was probably a pretty decent wine.