Wine Tasting - The Sense of Sight
Wine tasting basics begin with knowing how to use your senses to understand, interpret, and enjoy the wine. The ability to recognize what you see, and furthermore describe it in clear terms, is a very important wine tasting skill.
Although some may say the appearance of the wine is the least important aspect with regard to the senses, it is still worth noting. When examining appearance, we are looking for clarity and color. We want the wine to be free of any sediment, leaving it clear and brilliant. Red wines tend to lose their color as they mature, while white wines tend to grow darker with age. A good quality wine generally will be intense in color. The "legs" seen running down the sides of a glass after being swirled, are an indication of flavor density. It is best to use a plain white background, and tilt the glass slightly as you observe clarity and color.
Wine Tasting - The Sense of Touch
Touch is an important category of taste sensation. This is where we try to feel the wine on the palate. Here we seek to find impressions of such things as texture, body, temperature, and astringency. The aftertaste, finish, and length of a wine are all things we feel on our palate. We are looking for how the wine feels in weight (light, medium, full) and texture (silky, coarse, velvety). Try to observe how long the sensations last in your mouth. Most will tell you the longer it lasts, the better the wine!
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Fred Peterson / Peterson Winery
Winegrower / Owner
In
1987, when I started Peterson
Winery, I didn’t dream I’d have contact with so
many people. Part of what I enjoy about being in the wine industry
is meeting new people and making friends all over the world. Having
worked a harvest in New Zealand and one in Australia, I feel like
I am part of the international wine industry, not just the California
wine industry.
Telling someone what I used it do always makes me wonder where the time has gone. My career in the wine industry began during the 1970s. Please don’t start calculating my age. I am fortunate to have been both a vineyard manager and a winemaker for other wineries before starting my own winery. Those two roles combined give me a solid and comprehensive background of creating world-class wine.
My goal for Peterson Winery and myself is a simple one -- to craft better and better wines each year. I think that each year the experience of the proceeding vintages gives us more confidence and more insight. I am pleased with the wines we are producing, but I know that as vines mature and our knowledge continues to grow, we can craft better and better wines every year.
When I’m not working, my wife Kathleen Stewart, who owns the Downtown Bakery in Healdsburg, and I enjoy our children, tackling Kathleen’s major gardening projects and traveling. Our travels frequently include visits to our wine distributors throughout the country, and pouring wines at tastings or attending winemaker dinners. I am also a volunteer for the Geyserville Fire Department. Steve Grande is also a volunteer fireman and each year we hope that there are no fires during harvest. So do the other volunteers, many of who are in the wine industry.
Rather than tell you about James and Jan, I’ve asked them to tell you about themselves.
