When it comes to red wine, everyone thinks of France.
France is not the birthplace of red wine. According to research, the earliest wine origin is Armenia at the border of Europe and Asia, and it has a history of 6000 years. The earliest large-scale wine-making area was also found in Armenia, around 600 BC.
After that, wine-making technology spread in Europe along with wars and trade. The earliest method of wine making in France originated from the ancient Greeks and entered the territory of Provence today from the port of Marseille. At the same time, the wine brewing technology was brought along.
However, it was the French who made red wine appear in all kinds of alcoholic beverages. The French people's strength lies in formulating industry standards, quantifying the most primitive desires of mankind, and adding value.
The result is that it makes you feel that wearing clothes is not just clothes, but fashion; eating is no longer just eating, but eating culture; drinking is no longer just drinking, but drinking art.
Wine tasting is a rule set by the French. Everyone thinks it makes sense, so it has become more and more popular.
Today we will talk about how to quickly judge when drinking a glass of red wine, is it a good wine?
Too many wine tasting methods are difficult for people to grasp clearly. Here, Xiao Fei introduces an original Xiao Fei wine tasting method, so that everyone can easily master wine tasting knowledge in a short time.
The most important feature of red wine evaluation is: balance, or: balanced body
A well-balanced wine, we can say that this is a good wine
So this balance is mainly reflected in several aspects? It is mainly reflected in 5 dimensions:
- Aroma:
There is a joke about how to tell whether a European is a French or someone from another country depends on what he does first when he drinks. If he does not rush to drink first, but puts his nose close to the mouth of the wine glass and takes a deep breath to feel the aroma of red wine, then he is undoubtedly a Frenchman.
Aroma is a special smell brought about by the type of grape and the brewing method. At this time, it also reflects the importance of wine glasses. This is why you use a big belly to close your mouth or a flat mouth wine glass. Pour one-quarter to one-third of the red wine, let the aroma of the wine evaporate in a large space in the glass, and you can feel its charming aroma before drinking.
In France, a tool is used to assess the qualifications of sommeliers, called the nose. This is a tool that contains dozens to hundreds of red wine aromas. The reference person needs to be able to distinguish these different aromas and understand the corresponding names.
The general aromas are divided into several categories: fruity, floral, natural plant, and mineral. The fruity aroma is also divided into fresh fruit aroma and dried fruit aroma.
For example, you can describe: this glass of wine has the aroma of red fruits, or violets, or more romantic, with the aroma of moss in the forest after rain or the aroma of pine trees after snowfall.
And from the aroma, you can roughly determine the grape variety used to make wine. Because different grape varieties can produce different aromas.
- Astringency:
People who do not drink red wine think that astringency is not a bad standard. In fact, on the contrary, the astringency comes from the tannins in the wine, while the tannins are present in the grape skins and seeds, and some are present in the grape stems. Red wines are usually made without stems, except for one grape variety, which is Burgundy Pinot Noir.
The rich and full astringency can reflect the rich tannins of the wine, which is also the characteristic of Cabernet Sauvignon, a variety favored by famous French wineries. Cabernet Sauvignon has a small thick skin and strong tannins. Therefore, it can be used as a collection wine, after years of aging to increase its flavor, soften the tannins, and make the astringency appropriate. If you don't like wines with high astringency, you can choose some ready-to-drink wines or aged Cabernet Sauvignon.
- Acidity
Yes, red wine also has acidity. Too much acid indicates that the wine is over-fermented, and too small indicates that the wine is not fermented enough. Acidity comes from various acidic substances in the wine body, including tartaric acid, malic acid, citric acid and so on. Proper fermentation will properly transform these acidic substances and enrich the taste of the wine. Too much or not enough is not good. If a wine is particularly sour, it is likely to be over-fermented, it is better to make red wine vinegar as a cooking material.
- Texture:
Dove Chocolate has a slogan that says: Dove, enjoy the silky smoothness. This is texture.
A good red wine has a body over the teeth, over the tongue, over the throat, and should be as smooth as silk, not rough. Of course, there will be people who like the feeling of scratching their throat. This varies from person to person.
Generally, we would say that the wine is round and smooth, which is to comment on the texture of this wine.
- Back to Gan:
Huigan is a gift of French red wine to the world. France has its proud oak barrels. The aging of oak barrels gives the wine the taste of oak and leather, which becomes the final note when tasting wine. This kind of tail tone is called back sweet, which adds a bit of advanced flavor. So now as long as it is expensive wine, it will say that it has been aged in oak barrels for several months or more than a year. This has become a sign of high-end red wine.
Okay, now you can draw a five-dimensional picture of a spider web in your mind. The five points are the five important dimensions. Draw 10 points on each dimension, and the scores of different dimensions correspond to the points. In this way you get a five-dimensional map of wine tasting.
Touching hand-painted. . .
The more balanced the picture, the better the wine in its corresponding field. If there is a dimension that scores particularly high or low, you can also say this:
The body of this wine is very balanced, especially in terms of aroma. The first smell of small red fruit aroma brought by Grenache, blooming like cherries, will have the fragrance of dewy violets after waking up. There will be a hint of caramel and leather maturity in the back. It should be a mature red wine from southern France or the tropics.
Of course, in addition to these five dimensions, red wine also has other tasting dimensions. But relatively I think it is not that important. For example, the color depends largely on the type of grape. For example, Grenache has a relatively light color, while Pinot Noir is relatively dark.
Another reason is the vintage. The younger the wine is, the more purple it is, and the more it ages, the more it is garnet red, brick red, earth red and other tones. The color of Merlot is purple, but it is not necessarily a light vintage.
So this is difficult to be a clear criterion for judgment.
There is also the problem of hanging glasses. The hanging glasses of syrup are definitely better than water, but this is not a criterion for red wine.
