The 5 Ss

With the wines, the glasses, and everything else assembled, you're ready to dive in. But hold on: Take it slow. There's a difference between drinking and tasting wine. Drinking is done almost reflexively, unconsciously; tasting requires the attention of every one of the senses. You'll learn some things from drinking, but you'll learn far more from tasting.

Tasting isn't hard, but it does take a concerted effort. For this reason, it's handy to break the steps into "the five Ss": See, Swirl, Smell, Sip, and Spit (or Swallow).

See

There are all sorts of things a person can deduce from the look of a wine, but the most important question is, Is it free of foreign objects you wouldn't want to drink? Does it appear healthy, or is it bubbling like it's alive when it's supposed to be still? After that, you could try to guess its age (white wines turn darker with age, red wines lighten) or its grape (Nebbiolo can have a brownish cast, while Shiraz is often deep, dark purple, for instance). You could swirl the wine around to watch how long it clings to the sides of the glass: Generally, the longer the legs, or trails of wine down the glass, the richer the wine. Or you could leave all that to the hard-core wine dorks and just take in the wine's beauty for a little while.

Swirl

You can always tell the hard-core wine dork in a crowd of wine drinkers: She's the one swirling the wine in her glass. It's not an affectation; it's a way of getting more aroma out of the wine by exposing more of it to the air. Try it: Smell the wine without moving the glass. Now place the glass on a flat surface, and move the base in circles to create a mini-whirlpool in the wine. Stop and smell it. There's more to smell, right? Get the hang of it and soon enough you'll find yourself swirling your morning orange juice (which, by the way, looks pretty silly).

Smell

Taste is mostly smell, so this is the most important step. You can stop here, in fact, if you want. Right after swirling the wine, put the glass up to your nose and inhale deeply. Notice how the wine smells. Does it smell good? Does it make you want to take a sip? Swirl and sniff it again, and again. Try to put words to the smells: Does it smell like fruits or vegetables? Flowers or herbs? Green or red? Vivacious or wan? Whatever descriptions you can come up with will help you remember the wine.

If the wine smells like wet cardboard or like your grandparents' attic, it's most likely "corked." That means it's infected by TCA (trichloroanisole), a compound harmless to people that gives wines a musty flavor. While a corked wine won't hurt you, it doesn't taste as good as an uninfected bottle, so you should return it to the people from whom you bought it.

Sip

From the color and smell, you have an idea of what the wine's going to taste like. Now put it to the test. Take a sip, but don't swallow immediately. Hold the liquid in your mouth, chew on it, extract all the flavor you can from it. Act like a pro and open your mouth slightly, sucking air in over the wine in your mouth. (Try this in the comfort of your home before taking it into public, until you can do it with no fear of dribbling.) This aerates the wine (like swirling), so more aroma will fill your head.
While it's in your mouth, think about how it feels. Is it silky or prickly? Juicy or drying? Mouth-coating or refreshing? Wine contains acidity, which acts like a dash of vinegar on a salad: It brightens, enlivens, provides a fresh taste. Some wines—mostly reds—also contain tannin. If your mouth begins to feel a little like it's been swabbed with cotton balls, that's tannin. It feels a little bit like a sip of oversteeped tea does.

Wine also develops an array of flavors. What flavors can you pick out? Fruit? What sort? Spice? Chocolate? Earth? Most importantly, do you like it? This is not a trick question: There is no wrong answer. Your taste is yours alone, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

TIP: Bouquet is a crusty old wine term for all the various scents a wine gives off—for example, "This wine has a stupendous bouquet." It's more properly used to describe the aromas a wine develops as it ages; old wines can have a bouquet, but young wines have straightforward aromas.

Spit (or Swallow)

Finally, spit or swallow the wine. If you taste more than a few wines at a sitting, spitting is a really good idea; those little pours hold enough alcohol to dull the palate. If you're embarrassed to spit in public, practice in the shower until you've developed good form. It's less embarrassing to dribble, though, than to get drunk.

The tasting still isn't done yet. Even without wine left in your mouth, flavor lingers on. How long good flavors linger is a sign of quality; you’ll often near wine tasters say a wine has a good or a long finish.

Follow these steps for every wine, and you'll get far more out of each of them than you would were you to just casually drink them. When you begin to think that every wine tastes the same, though, take a break. Drink some water, and eat some bread. Don't have anything very flavorful, like stinky blue cheese, because those flavors will linger in your mouth, making it hard to taste the rest of the wines.