Never be intimidated again at a wine tasting.

I developed the 10 minute video below so you'll never be intimidated at a wine tasting again. Give it a quick view and you'll be well on your way to becoming a tasting expert! If you don't have time to watch, scroll down for a quick overview.

1. Color
   • What color is it?
     • Red wines are typically Ruby, Purple, or Garnet
     • White wines are typically lemon (straw), lemon, or gold
   • How intense is it? Intensity pertains to how light or how dark it is from pale to medium to deep.
2. Aromas
   • Probably the most subjective part of tasting.
   • There are 3 types or aromas found in wine:
   1. Primary: Aromas from the grape itself. White wines typically have citrus fruits, tropical fruits, and stone fruit aromas. Red wines have darker fruit aromas (berries, plums, cherries). One can also detect “earthy” aromas (think forest/woodsy/herbal/floral for reds and stone/chalk/white flowers for whites).
   2. Secondary: Aromas from the winemaking process, which are typically given off by yeast or oak (brioche, toast, or nutty aromas from yeast and baking spice, vanilla, or espresso from oak).
   3. Tertiary: Aromas that evolve as the wine ages (typically more than 4-5 years from vintage date). These can include tobacco, mushroom, or candied or dried fruit in reds and nutty or candied fruit in whites.
3. Palate
   • Swirl the wine around in your mouth and “chew” it to make sure your entire palate is covered.
   • The goal here is to describe the “structure” of the wine and what components from the aromas transfer to the palate.
   • The structure of a wine is comprised of the following: acidity, alcohol, tannins (or lack thereof), sugar (or dryness), and body (light, medium, full).
   • Finally, the finish. How long does the taste last on your palate? A fine wine will endure for what seems like minutes.

What Makes Wine...Good?

Of course, whether it’s good or not is a matter or preference, but there are a few important influences on whether a wine is considered to be high quality. Most importantly (and paradoxically), a winemaker is hoping that the vines struggle. Why, you ask, would you hope the vines struggle to produce grapes? It all comes down to lowering or managing yields, which leads to greater concentration of flavor. If you think of this as the guiding light behind all winemaking, you're on your way to understanding the difference between jug wine and high end wine.

That said, there are more factors that go into making better wine. Below is a list of the most important factors that influence the quality of a wine, along with a detailed explanation of why:
 

Low yields and struggling grapes

We already touched on this above, but it can't hurt to reiterate how important this is. The ultimate goal in winemaking is to gain the most concentration of natural grape flavor in the end product. There are a few ways a winemaker can manage yield, a few of which are listed below:

• Canopy management (does the variety grow better with more sun or less?)
• Vine spacing (the further apart the more ground water and soil they can thrive on)
• Older vines (they are less vigorous and produce fewer grapes)
• Green harvesting (removing extra bunches, or even just individual grapes, from the vine to balance fruit area and achieve better ripeness) 

It's important to note that while high yields are done for purposes of profit and almost always mean lower quality wine, the goal is never to get the lowest yield possible. Managing yield means balancing yield and finding the right amount of grapes per vine can vary, depending on a mountain of factors (variety, climate, vintage, vine age, etc.).

Dry climate

Grape vines can grow grapes with a surprisingly low amount of water. That said, vines do regularly need water to produce fruit. However, a drier climate can be better for the fruit because it helps prevent rot and fungus, not to mention some pests. Also, once again, that "concentration of flavor" topic comes back to us. A rainy season will mean more vigorous vines, higher yields, and washed out flavor as the grapes swell with water and not sugars and acid. Of course, water swelling is more precarious the closer growers are to harvest, because a few dry days will reduce swelling. But water is not always wine's best friend!

Sunlight (southern exposures – but not always!)

Of course, vines need sun to produce grapes. This isn't rocket science (actually, it's photosynthesis)! Traditionally, southern slopes have been the most coveted real estate for growing vines due to having the most direct and prolonged exposure to the sun. But too much sunlight isn't always ideal, especially as the climate warms, so producers have had to replant vines or use canopy management techniques to protect grapes from becoming "burnt".

Heat, but not too much (vines can shut down)

Just like sunlight, grapes need heat to ripen. Grape bunches won't ripen fully unless the average temperature in a growing region is at least above 60 degrees Fahrenheit. And just like sunlight, too much heat an be bad for the grape. If it gets too hot, typically over 100 degrees for an extended period of time, they stop metabolizing and the process of phenolic ripening is threatened. Consistently hot temperatures (80-90+) can also lead to wines that are out of balance, meaning they become too ripe and lose acidity, which is essential for preserving the freshness of a wine. Otherwise the wine is flabby and can taste "jammy".

Diurnal swings

Ah, the famous "diurnal swing". But what does that mean? Simply put, it means daily temperature change. Found in most of the best wine regions in the world, temperatures will be fairly high during the day but overnight they drop significantly, allowing grapes to preserve acidity. Acidity is crucial for providing structure and allowing wines to age. These daily temperature swings help get grapes to their perfect phenolic ripeness without losing acidity. 

Older vines with smaller bunches

We touched on this above, but managing yield is important for winemakers who want to get the most concentrated flavors out of the grape. A natural way for winemakers to do this is to work with old vines. Older vines are naturally less vigorous and produce less fruit than their younger counterparts. Also, their roots are pretty deep underground, making them more drought resistant and allowing them to extract more out of the soil than younger vines.

Soil that drains

Going back to the paradoxical nature of vine growing, ideally a wine is situated on soil that drains water well. Every grape variety will be different, for instance, Merlot likes clay, but this rule generally holds in the wine world.

Hand-harvesting

Grapes are finicky and delicate. It's important to handle them with care. It's also important that winemakers extract the right level of color and tannin from them, so it's important that they not rupture or become damaged before reaching the winery. Hand-harvesting allows the picker to identify the best fruit, a clean cut of the stem (if they do whole cluster fermentation), and gentle care of the bunches until they reach the winery.

Night harvesting

Remember all that stuff about preserving acidity? Well, it helps to pick at night if that's one of your goals. It also means better control over the fermentation process, which helps concentrate flavors and aromas. Essentially, night-harvesting means better complexity of aromatics, better control for the start of the fermentation, and less oxidation of fruit. Oh, and it can help the winemakers save energy and money in the process.

Native yeasts

All the rage in the natural winemaking world, the reason some winemakers choose to only work with native yeasts (yeasts naturally in, around, and on the grapes) is because of the old rule, "what grows together goes together".

Backing that up, recent studies have shown that all vineyards have a unique "microflora" fingerprint. Most winemakers don't leave that to chance and add cultured yeast, but for those who want to showcase an individual vineyard and vintage, allowing wild yeasts to do their work is the most honest reflection of "site specificity", or what some might call "terroir".

Oak aging regimen

The ever-controversial question of oak. How much new oak is right? How large or small are the barrels? How much do you toast it? Do you go with American or French oak? A winemaker must grapple with all of these questions and, to be quite frank, how much oak one likes on their wine is quite subjective.

However, there is no debating that a wine can benefit from oak aging and that oak aging imparts flavors and tannin compounds into the wine. A good winemaker will know just exactly how to employ it after factoring in variables like the grape(s) (or blend), the vintage, the soil, acidity levels, and so on.

In summary, all of these factors contribute to making the wine "better", and a lot of these reasons are why one wine from a similar place and variety is priced higher than another. However, at the end of the day, all that matters is what you think of it, not some wine critic. So get out there and try some wines!