While most people will tell you ways to enjoy wine more, I am telling you also, but by telling you what not to do. These pointers may help you as we are coming up to the holiday season. So here are my 5 points:
- Have a smoke – Having a cigarette, or cigar, just before tasting your glass of wine will reduce the aromas you can smell and flavours you can taste in the wine. Nicotine and tar in cigarette smoke coats your taste buds and nasal passages, so you cannot fully enjoy the aromas and flavours of the wine you are drinking. The cigarette smoke smell also clings to your clothes, and this can affect the people around you that are also trying to enjoy their wine.
- Brush your teeth or use mouthwash – I am all for good dental hygiene, but to enjoy wine, try to space out the time of wine tasting, from tooth brushing. The minty flavours in the toothpaste, or mouthwash, will interfere with the fruity flavours in the wine. Try to pick a neutral tasting toothpaste or mouthwash if you can.
- Wear strong perfume – While you may get accustomed to the smell of the perfume you are wearing, people around you will not be able to quickly adjust to the competing smell between your perfume and the aromas in their wine glass. During some tastings I have to take my glass of wine and walk to another part of the room as all I can smell is someone’s strong perfume.
- Have a cup of coffee – The smoky roasted flavour of the coffee does linger in your mouth. It may not cause too much trouble if you are tasting red wine (some wines are described as having a coffee flavour), but it would definitely be detracting for a white wine, interfering with the fruitiness of the wine.
- Enjoy a soda pop – For this you can get a double whammy from the sugar (or sugar substitute) and the flavouring in the pop. Sugar can make a dry red wine taste even drier. Even a white wine would taste drier. The flavouring from a cola drink would not be a pleasant experience with a white wine, competing with it’s fruit flavours. A lemon/lime soda would be a poor match with a full bodied red wine. Again space out between your sip of pop and sip of wine.
Do you have any other suggestions for things not to do before you enjoy a nice bottle of wine? Let me know in your comments below.
