What Conoisseurs Look For

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By Jeanne Benedict
Celebrations Expert

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What do wine connoisseurs look for under the cork?

An excellent wine balances the flavor of the grape with the aromatic
tones of the cask, and the vintner's special crafting secrets.
Experts
also have their technical checklist of tannins, acidity, weight, and so
on, which they mentally compute with every sip.
Perhaps the best
indication of a wine's quality is the "aftertaste" or "finish." A wine
that pleasantly lingers on your palate for 20 to 30 seconds is usually
considered to be outstanding.

Put the professional standards aside for your wine tasting party.

Your
guests already have the knowledge they need to figure out their likes
and dislikes in a bottle of wine.
As the party host, you can help them
along by "priming their palates." Tasting notes on a bottle of wine
often spell out specific characteristics or ingredients that the pros
have identified, such as "tones of ripe berries" or "notes of stone
fruit".
By setting out bowls of these ingredients at your wine tasting
party, guests can prime their senses to detect the nuances in a bottle
of wine, by smelling the ingredient first, and then taking a whiff of
the wine. It gives their palate a "head start" through the sense of
smell, which is really how we "taste" wine.