Wine studies #1

Hello, 

So today I began my wine tasting class. In the first class we mostly discussed the history of wine in Australia. We did though talk about the most important part of tasting which is the ability to discern specific taste and smells. My professor noted that we should all go to the grocery store and smell the produce in order to commit the smells to memory. Also that we should not only know good smells, such as fruits and flowers, but also bad smells such as dirty socks and sweat horse blanket. These "bad"  smells occur when something in the wine has gone bad. Typically it is from mold in the grapes or from a build up of 2,4,6 trichloroanisole in the cork of the wine. This 2,4,6 trichloroanisole can sometimes be considered good by adding complexity to the wine but more often it will ruin the wine. That is why now in Australia they use screw caps instead because then none of the wine will go bad from the corks. 

Taste is also important so I have decided to do a run to the store after class to pick up different fruits, and fruits I have never had before, to try to commit those to memory. Also I will have to learn to distinguish primary and secondary tastes. Primary tastes are the typically fruity taste of the wine and secondary tastes are the ones that come from the wine making process such as an oak flavor if stored in an oak barrel.

We also learned that we would be tasting the wines and then writing about their Appearance, Smell, Palate (taste and feel), Overall quality, and then giving it a food match. 

This part will start next week and I can't wait to get started. 

~Karli