Welcome to Melissa Darnay Uncorked. Today in the tasting room we’re talking about why it’s important to swirl your wine.
There are 4 S of tasting wine like a pro:
- See
- Swirl
- Smell
- Sip
Today we’re talking about S number two… Swirl.
Have you ever wondered why wine weeks swirl their wine like their trying to start a tornado in their glass? What they’re doing is opening the aromas. The technical term for this is volatilizing the esters. (Try saying that seven times fast after you’ve had some wine!)
When you stick your nose into a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, you may smell green apples. But I guarantee you, no apples lost their lives to make this wine. The wine is made from one hundred percent grapes. If you remember back to chemistry class, all aromas are made from chemical compounds called esters. The ester for green apple smell is this:
And it’s the same whether you’re smelling it in a Granny Smith apple or in a glass of Sauvignon Blanc.
When you open a bottle of wine, it’s been without oxygen for months, years, or even decades. The act of swirling the wine turns the chemical compounds into vapor making it easier to smell.
To show you how important swirling is, we’re going to do an experiment. I’m going to pour a few ounces of a California Cabernet into a glass. You don’t want to overfill it… just a little bit so we have room to swirl. If you want to follow along at home, just put the video on pause, go to your kitchen, grab a little bit of wine, and join me back here in a minute.
The wine I’m using for today’s experiment is the 2015 Austin Hope Cabernet Sauvignon from Paso Robles. Tell me what wine you’re using in the comment section below.
To do the experiment effectively, I’m not going to swirl the wine at all. You saw me pour it, and now I’m going to smell it and tell you what I smell. I smell a lot of black fruit and just a little hint of tobacco. But that’s pretty much all I smell. Now when I swirl the wine it’s going to volatilize the esters.
Learn Why to Swirl Wine. Watch this wine education video…
So without swirling I got black fruit and a hint of tobacco. After swirling, I get the individual fruit—the blackberry, the blueberry—vanilla, a hint of chocolate.
Technically, this video is all about swirling but we can’t do a video without tasting. So I’m going to taste it and give you my seven cents. Mmm. This wine tastes even better than it smells, if that’s even humanly possible.
I give this wine two thumbs up. Austin Hope, thank you for your service.
Until next time,
Cheers!
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