Tasting means enjoying wine in a better, more conscientious manner. Wine is a complex beverage, and it must be observed and smelt before drinking if one intends to discover its essence, heightening one’s sensations and fully absorbing it to appreciate its quality.

Subjecting wine to our senses to know it better, familiarize ourselves and define it, requires a certain dedication.

The appearance of a wine is appraised through visual analysis, and is linked to the cleanness, tonality of color and viscosity and, in some cases, its effervescence. During its fragrance examination, the air emanated by the wine is smelt to identify the aroma.

In the tasting phase, a small quantity of the wine is taken into the mouth for the retro-olfactory evaluation and perception. A veritable explosion of sensations can take place.

The visual test gives the first impression of quality for a wine according to its chromatic richness and appearance. Red wine can be a garnet, ruby, roof tile or purplish red. Ochre tones indicate aging.

White wines have transparent, yellow and greenish reflections.

The aromas are discovered in the olfactory phase. They can depend on the grape variety (primary), the fermentation process (secondary) or the aging process (tertiary, or bouquet). They can be classified into three main groups:

- floral and fruit: light, fragile aromas that travel up the side of the glass, evoking fresh fruits (pineapple, apple, raspberries, etc.), nuts (hazelnuts, toasted almonds, etc.), or flowers (roses, violets).
- Green, or earthy scents: these are situated in a middle area of the glass, reminding one of mint, pine, tobacco, etc.
- Wood and alcohol: these are intensive aromas that remain the bottom of the glass, reminding of oak, etc.

By swirling the glass, we enhance the most outstanding aromas present in each type of wine.

Taste, along with smell, is one of the essential senses to appreciate wine. The tastes that come into play in the tasting impression are sweet, acid and bitter, forming a balance among them:
- sweet: detected on the tip of the tongue, predominant in wines with residual sugar and alcohol content below 11 degrees
- sour: located at the edges of the central area of the tongue, we can detect a green apple taste as the result of the predominance of malic acid. If it is a lemon taste, citric acid or a vinegarish aroma of acetic acid will dominate. Lactic acid will give it a touch of mildness, followed by the bitterness detected on the back part of the tongue.

Three differentiated phases will be used to detect tastes:
- contact: the wine is left in the mouth two or three seconds to perceive sweet tastes
- evolution: this lasts between five and twelve seconds, and sour, bitter and salty tastes are noted
- impression: this takes over five seconds. In this phase, the bitter taste persists

The permanence of the tastes in the mouth once the wine has been swallowed is called the “aftertaste”. Depending on its duration, the wines are classified as short or long on the palate. The longer the duration, the greater the quality.