The MGs' no-BS guide to wine tasting...

Tasting wine is as easy as pie, the steps as automatic as ABC. We're not talking the winery also known as ABC, or the reverse-snob "Anything But Chard" ABCs (easily detected in hip restaurants where you can barely find a California Chardonnay buried beneath a pages of Verdejos, Vermentinos, Picpouls, Pulignys and Chassagnes… although all these cool, white Pulignys and Chassagnes are made – surprise! – from Chardonnay, only California’s Chardonnays beat the doo doo out of them in Paris back in ’76!).

Knowing the ABCs of wine tasting simply increases your pleasure. Why not? If you’re going to buy an $18 Chardonnay, why not enjoy it as if it were $180? You can do that, believe it not, simply by knowing the hows and whys of tasting. Think of a Van Gogh sunflower. At first, it might look like a painting your Aunt Gladys did, which your mom hung over the toilet opposite her ’67 Dead concert poster to brighten up the loo. But with further wise instruction, you notice the vibrant golds contrasting with arid browns fading into black, drawing your consciousness to the full spectrum of life and death leading you to a deeper understanding of how living things are tied together.

Or not. Maybe the Lion King brought that home better for you. Either way, it’s nice to get an explanation for why you do all the things you do when tasting wine. You can see a lot, Yogi Berra once said, by observing.

Twenty or so years ago the Sonoma Wine Growers Association traveled around the country promoting their wines as a group, and passing out posters advising consumers to "Swirl, Sniff, Sip & Spit." That’s it, lesson done. Okay, when sitting at home on the couch you don’t need the fourth part, which summarizes the best way to taste 25 or 50 wines at a time without getting zonked. Spitting on the rug will not impress mom or Aunt Gladys.

So let’s start with part one: swirling, which is not an affectation. The reason you swirl is to allow a wine fall down the sides of a glass and create the vapors that you smell and perceive as aromas. Start by holding your glass by the stem (not by the bowl, like you see those unschooled actors doing on television), and then gently twirling. If you're spilling over the rim, it may be because you’re not using the right wine glass. Ideally, a glass should be good sized (12 oz. minimal, 16 to 22 oz. better); and besides, the larger the surface area for vapors to form off the glass, the stronger the aromas (or “bigger nose,” in winespeak). And practice doesn't hurt – you might begin by keeping the glass on a table or flat surface and simply sliding it around in a circle to get the swirl on.

Then part two: when you smell your wine, open your mind up to what it reminds you of. Believe it or not, you taste with your brain, even imagination, not your nose or mouth. Chardonnays, for instance, are usually reminiscent of apples, pears, or pineapples, with little suggestions of cream or butter. If the wine is aged in a barrel that’s been slightly charred (or “toasted,” another wine parlance) inside by fires that bend the staves, you smell the fruit and butter mixed in with a little bit of smokiness.

A good Cabernet Sauvignon often smells like mint or eucalyptus, mixed up with aromas suggesting dark skinned fruits (such as berries and plums), smoky wood, vanilla beans, and even Italian roasted green peppers. Wine experts and back labels often liken the smell of Cabernet to blackcurrants. If you don't get that, don't sweat it, since most right thinking wine drinkers have a lot better things to do than going around sniffing blackcurrants.

The idea is that if you can't smell wine – or anything you eat or drink, for that matter – then you really can't taste it, since flavor is pretty much a byproduct of smell. This is why nothing tastes good when you have a bad cold and your nose is so stuffed that you can’t smell.

So go ahead and swirl your wine for two or three seconds, and then stick your nose just above the rim of the glass. Close your eyes, and let go. Is it like wet stones or blueberry pie? Your first girlfriend’s perfume, or an air conditionless locker room in summer? Loosen up. Wine plays with your mind; but if you don’t let it, you’re missing out on the fun in it!

Then it's time to actually taste, which for wine is seeing how the natural elements of alcohol, acidity, and (for red wine) tannin come together with the aromas to create a pleasant (hopefully!) flavor on the palate. Your first taste should indeed be a discreet and purposefully curious sip. Get an attitude, like a cat at a bowl; starting with one of the most noticeable components of a wine’s taste, which is its “body” (more winespeak, but necessary to make distinctions)

Body is determined more than anything by a wine’s volume of alcohol. German whites, for instance tend to be lighter in body because they’re generally less than 10% alcohol. Whites made from the Chardonnay grape tend to be well over 13% alcohol, and thus quite heavy or full bodied. Red wines such as Cabernet Sauvignon have full alcohol as well as the taste of tannin – the mildly bitter or astringent sensation derived from the skins of the grapes with which red wines are always fermented (white wines are always fermented with their skins removed) – which inevitably results in a very full bodied taste. But there are also red wines made from grapes with relatively thin skins, such as those made from Gamay (the grape of Beaujolais in France) and Pinot Noir. Thinner skinned red grapes tend to yield red wines of softer tannin, thus of easier, lighter body.

Joshua Wesson, one of the least snobbiest of our wine experts, describes light bodied reds like Beaujolais and Pinot Noir as "cross dressers" – red wines that "think" they are whites and, in fact, go with the same types of foods as whites (fish, chicken, etc.) precisely because their tannin is so minimal, resulting in wines as soft and easy as whites.

The natural acids of wine grapes inject crisp, lively qualities into the flavor of wine. Think of a wine’s acidity as being the rhythm section of a band. Sure, the singer is sexy and the guitar player can wail. But without some kind of "purple gang" doling out the beat, the blood don’t pump and the mind ain't rolling. Most every good white is high on acid; because without acidity, German Rieslings taste insipid, Sauvignon Blancs dull, and Chardonnays flabby.

And if acidity is the beat of white wines, tannin is the bass of reds: giving Cabernets their sense of fullness, Merlots some muscle to contrast their sumptuousness, and even softer, perfumed Pinots their deeper, serious side (making them like grown women rather than flat, clueless girls).

So when you taste, say, the Murphy-Goode Fumé, a.k.a. Sauvignon Blanc, think tropical flowers in the nose; and then on the palate, zesty fruit combined with soft sands and hammocks in Hawai`i. If it’s someone else’s soft, lush style of Sauvignon Blanc, you might think Scarlett Johannson’s lips; or Mick Jagger’s or Mike Tyson’s, if the Sauvignon Blanc is stony or earthy like those of France or South Africa. We think our Cabernet Sauvignons can be as thick as a Thomas Pynchon, as rich as reggae, as dark as a Daniel/Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood, yet as elegant as a Jason Bourne/Matt Damon reverse flying roadhouse kick… yet still coming up roses, even blackcurrants.

And you know what? That's it, in an oyster shell. Swirl, sniff, sip, and think about what you're tasting rather than those damned Republicans or Democrats. The Europeans have been doing this forever; which is why, come to think of it, they think nothing of closing up shop two, three hours a day, or one, two months out of the year. Sure, it's a pleasure thing for them; but what it isn't is a holier-than-thou-ain't-I-sophisticated thing. It just is... living, as the late, great Stevie Ray Vaughan once put it, life by the drop… one swirl, sniff and sip at a time.