Wine : How to recognize a good from a bad wine ?

It would be much easier to choose a bottle in a bar or a store with a breakdown by quality or at least for a quality / price ratio.. It is obvious that quality plays an important role during a tasting, but isn't the degree of quality we give to a wine just a matter of personal taste ?

I'm sure after reading these few lines, you are saying to yourself "Wine tasting is above all anarchic". And you're right, everyone decides what is good and what is not. The real question behind the quality of wine is whether it tastes good and who can answer this question other than yourself.

Of course, nuances exist between a good and an excellent wine and it is the tasting's role to answer this question. To give the most objective answer possible, the tasters use a methodology and standards that make it possible to minimize the subjectivity of this analysis. There are standards in the automotive world as in many other areas, but those of oenology do not guarantee a quality that everyone can recognize. The measure of quality therefore remains in your hands - or rather your taste —.

A good wine is therefore the one you like regardless of what others think. It makes you want to drink it and share it with your friends. It also makes you want to peel it, to know what is in his stomach by analyzing his aromas, its length, and so on. It is only after having appreciated a wine that you can use criteria allowing you to compare it with other wines to know if it is more or less good.. The use of subjective criteria such as balance, the depth, complexity and typicality will make your analysis objective - only for you, hence the advantage of using a tasting notebook —.

In my opinion, balance is the most important criterion for judging the quality of a wine, but also the most complex to analyze. Balance responds to three main components of wine : acidity, sugar and tannins. The balance between these three elements as well as the sensation of alcohol allow us to judge the quality of the wine.

The important thing is not to have one parameter dominating the others. Remember to take your personal tastes into account - I was aged very early on with Beaujolais wines which are not very tannic compared to those from Bordeaux, I must therefore be careful not to overestimate the level of tannins when I taste. —

As soon as you put the wine in your mouth, you can check for the absence or presence of a sweet flavor on the tip of your tongue. This sweetness - or not - makes it possible to distinguish a dry wine, semi-dry or soft. You have to be careful at the beginning not to confuse the sweet flavor of the fruity that a wine can have.. By blocking your nose, the sweetness will persist while the fruity aroma will no longer be perceptible.

All wines have a more or less strong acidity - even the red ones —. However, the acidity of the whites is a predominant criterion which gives it all its character. By putting the wine in the mouth, the lateral sides of your tongue will allow you to analyze the acidity.

Tannin is an element naturally present in the skin, seeds and stems - the small stalk - grapes. Red wines are left in contact with the skins during their development, hence a higher tannin rate than for the whites. Like the acidity for a white, the level of tannin is an essential criterion to judge a red. They are seen on the back of the tongue and cheeks. The more tannic the wine, the more you will perceive a sensation of dryness in the mouth. It is often difficult to distinguish between acidity and tannins. To differentiate these two aspects that dry out the mouth, focus on salivation after swallowing the wine : the acidity causes salivation while the tannins leave the mouth dry.

The length of a wine does not correspond to the speed at which you could finish the bottle, but with the olfactory and gustatory persistence of the wine. When you taste, take a look at the time when you still perceive its aromas after you have swallowed your sip. The more caudalies you have, — one caudalie equals one second or one Mississippi, but for the wine - the more it can be considered qualitative. Technological wines are very often exuberant on the palate and they quickly vanish once the sip is swallowed. — you can find a very beautiful woman, a real bomb, but you will remember the extremely charming woman next door (it also works for men) —

Depth is a fairly open concept. According to my experience and my own definition, a wine is deep when it offers several distinct aromatic layers. By smelling or tasting the wine, we will first perceive a dominant aroma and then gradually we will smell other aromas not perceived at first glance or a finer specificity of this dominant aroma. — the strawberry aroma can be distinguished from the classic strawberry, wild strawberry, the strawberry jam, and so on. —

Complexity is the relationship between length and depth of wine. A wine can be long and yet shallow, which will make it a simple wine - a single aroma, but very persistent —. A wine with several layers of different flavors and with a good persistence in the mouth will be judged as richer and therefore of better quality..