People who love wine and everything that it involves find the availability of a wine tasting tour to be a wish come true. Once upon a time this was an expensive and troublesome affair; however today with the popularity of wine growing globally and people wanting to know more and more about this elixir from grapes, a wine tasting tour is not as troublesome to organize as it was two decades ago.

What does it take to have a Perfect Wine Tasting Tour?

In order to have a trouble-free trip, your visit should be planned meticulously and carefully. This will optimize your joy and give you sufficient time to learn and connect with all that you see and hear on the wine tasting tour. So let us see what is needed usually for a wine tasting tour:

Proper planning: Always plan for a maximum of five wineries per day – two in the morning, and two to three in the afternoon. If you go for more, you will lose track of the taste and you will not be able to talk about the wine and find out its history and details. Sometimes, the details make the trip even more charming.

Arrange for a driver: While you are on the wine tasting tour you will need to swallow the wines you taste. This might make you a bit tipsy when you should not have to drive your car. Hence, always have a driver close by just in case you have a bit too much of wine to taste.

Avoid any strong odors: While on the wine tasting tour avoid wearing any strong perfumes or aftershave since any such smell will totally derail your findings on the wine you are going to taste.

Be appropriately dressed: People usually spit the wine out after tasting it. Some have learned to spit without splashing anyone. Hence, you should always wear clothes that can absorb a wine stain; don’t wear white.

By all means spit: According to the society, spitting is found to be a very gross behavior. Hence, many people find it extremely uncomfortable to spit the wine out of the mouth after tasting. Learn to accept that spitting as part of this profession; spitting will also ensure that you do not become intoxicated in the first few hours of tasting.

Follow the above points you will be assured of a fun-filled and trouble free wine tasting tour.

Jerry Powell

There are basically two parts to Wine Tasting, first is ‘What are we looking for’ the second is ‘How are we looking’. We’ll start with the How, and move on to the What.

Traditionally the seven steps to sampling wine are: see, sniff, swirl, smell sip, swish, and spit. This is the process we see tasters going through at the table and in wineries.

The first thing we want to do is see that the color of the wine is good. Put some light behind the glass and look for clarity. Fogginess is a sign we probably want to be careful with. Rusty colors in a white wine are another sign that we probably don’t want to put it in our mouths.

That might seem a bit crass but let’s keep in mind what we are looking at here. The act of Wine Degustation didn’t get its start at high society dinner tables as a way to see what was good with lamb, and what is better with beef. Wine Degustation came into being as a method of deciding what was safe to drink and what might be poisonous due to bad storage or aging processes. While today these tasting methods are less defensive, since modern methods of wine making produce safer wines, some wines you may get to embrace were bottled 100 years ago, or even 200.

Some red wines are so dark you will be lucky to see anything through them, but we still want to take a look. Some of the more obvious signs we want to look for are brown, muddy, orange or other non-winelike colors. It is not uncommon to see bits of cork floating in a glass of wine, just try to make sure that it is cork.

After our eyes are satisfied, we try our nose. Recall that taste is more or less an olfactory sense. With practice we can tell a great deal about a wine from its perfume. A good whiff at the very least will give you an impression, or preview of what to expect from the wine when we taste it. The obvious impressions to look out for are: does it smell like wine? Is the overall fragrance fresh or foul? Anything strange about it?

Our next step, the swirl, enhances our ability to evaluate the first two steps once more. The swirl is to get some of the wine onto the surface of the inside of the glass. Wines are generally not oily or syrupy. The liquid should slide off the side in an expected manner. Also with the wine spread out on the surface, it should be easier to get a better sample of the fragrance it presents. Which is what we do now, but this time we inhale it slowly. No quick sniffs. We bring the fragrance into our nose with a smooth steady inhale, letting our mind go through the stages of the bouquet with a more examining course.

If our nose is still interested then we move on to taking a small sip. Just enough to get a taste on our tongue. You will notice here a bit more of the cautionary tactics in the wine tasting steps, but there is a bit more benefit really than just making sure that we didn’t miss something painful in the previous steps before we commit to a good mouthful. Taking in just a taste allows our mouth to get a quick preview and some expectations. There is also the fact that many concoctions, not just wine, taste a bit different when taken in small sips rather than mouthfuls.

So we are still interested, and by this time we are sure whether or not we want to commit to a real taste, so we take in a mouthful. Not only do we take it in, we swish it around like it was mouthwash, letting the liquid coat every part of our mouths and gums. Allowing the wine to be heated up by our body temperature. Some tasters even gargle a bit with the wine, because our taste buds are everywhere in our mouths.

The last step is spit or swallow. Not much to say about that, but it is a choice to be sure. If this is the only wine or one of two or three you are going to be tasting tonight, swallowing might be an appropriate option. But if you are at a winery and going through 6 or 7 wines, spitting is probably your best option. Otherwise every wine is going to start tasting “swell” and you might as well just have a few glasses rather than try to go through the steps.

What are we really looking for through all of this? There are many aspects of wine, and each vintage and type has its nuances. There are some over all basics though we can start out with.

Oakiness - Some wines have a ‘oak’ flavor. There really isn’t another way to describe it. You have to taste it, but once you do you can pick it out. The flavor is generlly from either from the Aging barrel or oak chips

Sweetness - The process of some wines allows a greater amount of the natural sugars from the grapes (Or fruit) to remain without being processes into alcohol. So a sweetness, and sometimes a fruity taste remains from the amount of residual sugar

Tannin - A wine stressing tannins would be described most of the time as dry. Tannin is the bitterness from seed and skin of the grape and is effected by carbonic maceration and Maceration

Above all, the real test is Did you like it. Your tastes are just as valid as anyone else’s and life is too short for wine you don’t like. Enjoy. About the Author

Jerry Powell is the Owner of a Popular site Know as Gourmet911.com. As you can see from our name, we are here to help you learn more about different kinds of Gourmet food and Wines, Coffees from all around the world. www.gourmet911.com/

If you want to host a fun and easy party at home, what you need is a wine tasting party kit. A wine tasting party kit is available in beautifully packed containers. It contains every single thing one needs to make a wine party successful. There are many brands available in the market and every company supplies everything, except the glasses and the wine.

A wine tasting party kit contains six reusable linen wine bottle covers, tasting score pads, a “cheat sheet” of tasting terms, and wine glass markers. There is a 64 page illustrated book given with the kit which explain in details the art of the swirl, the beauty of the bouquet, and tons of other info about the wonders of wine-tasting. A wine tasting party kit can be given as a gift to a novice or to an expert or to anybody in between.

Many people have described wine tasting party kit as the perfect solution for their party. As per the rule, each of the guests brings a different bottle of wine to the party and the kit provides everything for a unique and exciting evening.

It is not that you will be able to taste only a single variety of wine. A wine tasting party kit emphasizes on mingling, experiencing, and learning about wine. People who have attended such a party have described it as the best possible party they have attended.

Types of Wine Tasting Party Kit Available

Actually, many types of wine tasting party kits are available in the market. Some can accommodate six people, while there are others, which can cater to up to fifteen people. According to the size and the number of features available with the kit, the price of the product varies.

The more expensive ones include features like easy scoring system to determine winners, ready to use scoring cards, game pieces to tally opinions, color award certificates and even pencils and erasers. The sky is the limit and the possibilities are endless.

You can look over the Internet for deals to finding a great kit at a reasonable price. You could choose between a reusable kit if you plan on hosting several parties or a cheaper, disposable kind, which you can just toss in after this event.

If you would have to do it alone, it would take hours of preparation time as compared to if you have a wine tasting party kit, things will become much faster and easier for you.