Wine tasting is a very simple process. Someone pours some wine into a glass. You pick it up and take a sip. Repeat. Of course there are many subtleties beyond that: smelling the wine, noting the color, swirling it around your mouth, etc. This process applies at wineries (and bars and homes) around the world.
Photo courtesy of Schramsberg Vineyards.
But tasting sparkling wine is somewhat different. There is more to it, in some ways, and less in others. So if you’re visiting a sparkling wine producer, anywhere from Champagne to Calistoga, here are some tips to add to your enjoyment.
- Notice the glass. In the past, at least in the United States, the glasses for sparklers were coupes. Wide and shallow, they would enable the bubbles to tickle your nose. Of course, the wine rapidly became flat. For some reason, they’re still popular at weddings. Flutes then came into fashion. These tall, thin glasses kept the bubbles in and away from your nose, exposing as little of the surface of the wine in the glass to the air. Now, in many wineries that specialize in bubbly, the glasses are tulip-shaped, with a bit of a bulge at the bottom and narrowing at the top.
- Enjoy the aroma. The reason the glass matters is that the shape affects what and how you smell it. Coupes are all about bubbles, so you’d better sip in a hurry without worrying about smelling the wine. Flutes retain the carbonation, but give less space for the aromas to expand in the glass. The tulip is kind of a compromise, allowing the smells to circulate a bit before you sip. So hold a flute as horizontally as you can and breathe in the delicate aromas of citrus and warm toast, often found in some sparkling wines. With a tulip, stick your nose into the glass right away, before even thinking of sipping.
- Don’t swirl. With tasting of table wines, swirling it before sniffing and tasting adds to the enjoyment of the contents of the glass. Not so with sparkling wines. All swirling does is release some of the gas and thus the bubbles. So it detracts from your enjoyment.
- Take a look at the bubbles. You should see a steady upward stream of them that should continue unabated for a while. If you don’t, the bottle has been open too long and has gone flat. Give it back to the server and ask for a new bottle to be opened. (If you’re doing this at someone’s home, smile and enjoy your glass of white wine.)
- How long should the bubbles last? Scientists will tell us that some bubbles will be present for hours after being served. But the whole point of sparkling wine is to have a lot of fizz. Once it goes flat – practically if not scientifically – there’s no point in drinking it.
- A bit more about bubbles. Cheaper, less well-made sparkling wine has big, fat bubbles. Because each one has more gas in it, it takes less time for more to get out of the wine, i.e., go flat. Smaller bubbles are more elegant and longer lasting and are found in premium sparkling wines.
- Don’t over-intellectualize it. Despite all the above it’s still just wine, albeit fizzy wine. Savor it as you would any other fine wine and take in the scents and tastes emanating from the glass, without trying to make it a sacred experience.