Demonstration 16 - The accomplishment to a nice meal...

...is a good glass of wine. So today was our first lesson in the "grape science".


Wine in the morning certainly is quite the challenge. So the first thing we did was....guess what? Peel a grape.

Then ate the flesh and after that the peel. Flesh beautifully sweet and juicy - the peel bitter and extremely mouth-drying. Now that is just the sensation in the mouth. It was followed by food for thought. The dryness comes from the tannins in the skins. Mostly tannins are found in red wines, but some white wines have tannins as well. And apart from the unpleasant dryness that tannins cause, they also have good qualities. They help wines mature, giving structure and making the taste more balanced.

News to me was that the colour of the wine comes PURELY from the skins. So there are white wines made from black grapes. but these tannins are only in the skins of the blacks grapes. Thus, first lesson learnt no dryness sensation from white wine.

Well, I guess it is common knowledge that there are red, white and rosé wines and light, sparking and fortified wines. So just before lunchtime we made our first attempt at tasting wine professionally - a red and a white. A Sauvignon Blanc and a Merlot.

So first look at the wine in the glass, then smell it and try to guess some of the aromas and flavours and then finally take a small sip. Swirl the wine around in your mouth and make that funny slurping sound by inhaling some air while the wine is still in your mouth. Just like the pros do it.

I found it extremly difficult to pinpoint and name the different taste sensations. Good thing we have another class on this on Thursday!