How to taste wine
Wine tasting is a skill, not a talent. Anyone can learn it. It comes down to four steps: sight, smell, taste, and finish. Work through them on every glass and you will notice how quickly your palate develops. When you are ready, print the free tasting sheet and work through it glass by glass.
By Bas Voets · Published 18 June 2026 · Last updated
Sight
Look at the wine
Tilt your glass against a white background — a napkin or sheet of paper works perfectly. Note the colour and its intensity. A pale ruby suggests a young Pinot Noir; a deep purple-black points to Syrah or Malbec. Whites range from almost clear to deep gold. The rim tells you the most: browning at the edge signals age or oxidation, while bright purple signals youth. Whites travel the other way, darkening toward amber.
Smell
Nose the wine
Smell the wine before you swirl — the most delicate aromas escape first, and swirling blows them off. Then swirl once and smell again. Check the condition before anything else: wet cardboard means cork taint, vinegar or nail polish means the wine has oxidised. Then work through the primary aromas (fruit, flowers, herbs), the secondary aromas from fermentation (bread, yeast, cheese) and the tertiary aromas from ageing (leather, tobacco, earth, vanilla, spice).
Taste
Take a sip
Let the wine coat your whole mouth. Notice sweetness first at the tip of your tongue, then acidity as a mouth-watering sensation on the sides, tannin as a drying grip on your gums (reds only — white wines carry almost none), and alcohol as warmth in the back of your throat. Body is the weight of the wine on your palate: light, medium, or full. Acidity is the one people most often under-rate.
Finish
Notice the aftertaste
After you swallow, start counting. Under 10 seconds is a short finish and typical of simpler wines; 10 to 30 seconds is medium; a finish that holds and keeps evolving past 30 seconds is the mark of a great wine. It is the single best predictor of quality on the whole grid. Note whether what lingers is pleasant, bitter, or merely acidic.
The WSET Systematic Approach to Tasting (SAT)
Those four steps are the backbone of the WSET Systematic Approach to Tasting, the grid every student learns in Wine & Spirit Education Trust exams. It marches through a wine in the same order every time, appearance, then nose, then palate, then the conclusions, so nothing slips past you and any two tasters can sit down and compare notes on equal footing. Treat the grid below as your checklist, and run it on every glass until it becomes second nature.
Appearance
- Clarity: is it bright and clean, or dull and hazy?
- Intensity: pale, medium, or deep
- Colour: lemon, gold and amber in whites; ruby, garnet and tawny in reds
- The tell-tales: legs down the glass, a bead of bubbles, sediment in an older bottle
Nose
- Condition: clean, or is there a fault hiding in there?
- Intensity: does it leap from the glass or sit quietly?
- Aromas: primary fruit and flowers, secondary notes from oak and yeast, tertiary character from age
- Development: youthful, developing, or fully mature
Palate
- Sweetness: bone dry through to lusciously sweet
- The structure: acidity, tannin and alcohol, each low to high
- Body and flavour intensity: the weight and presence on the palate
- Finish: count the seconds the flavour lingers after you swallow
Conclusions
- Weigh four things in order: balance, length, intensity, complexity
- Quality: faulty, poor, acceptable, good, very good, or outstanding
- Readiness: too young, drink now, drink or hold, or past its best
- Be honest — if you wrote "light, simple, short finish", it is not an outstanding wine
Primary, secondary and tertiary aromas
Sorting what you smell by where it comes from turns a list of descriptors into evidence. Lots of primary fruit and nothing else points to a young, unoaked wine. Tertiary notes tell you it has age.
The grape itself
Primary aromas
Citrus, green apple, peach, tropical fruit, red cherry, blackcurrant, rose, violet, cut grass, black pepper
Fermentation and winemaking
Secondary aromas
Bread, biscuit, yoghurt, butter (from malolactic fermentation), vanilla, toast, smoke, clove (from oak)
Ageing in barrel or bottle
Tertiary aromas
Dried fruit, leather, earth, mushroom, tobacco, forest floor, honey, nuts, petrol in aged Riesling
How to tell if a wine is faulty
Condition is the first thing you judge on the nose. These are the faults you will meet most often.
Cork taint (TCA)
Wet cardboard, damp cellar, musty. The fruit seems muted.
Return the bottle. Nothing fixes it.
Oxidation
Bruised apple, sherry-like, flat. Whites turn brown early.
Deliberate in sherry and some old wines. In a young table wine it is a fault.
Reduction
Struck match, rotten egg, cabbage.
Often blows off after decanting or swirling for a few minutes.
Volatile acidity
Vinegar, nail polish remover.
A trace can add lift. When it dominates, the wine is spoiled.
Heat damage
Cooked, jammy, stewed fruit. The cork may be pushed up.
Caused by storage, not the producer. Return it if you can.
Practise on a pair
The fastest way to learn one element of structure is to taste two wines that differ mostly in that element. Pour both, fill in a sheet for each, then compare.
pinot noir vs gamay
Body. Same family of red fruit, different weight.
sangiovese vs nebbiolo
Tannin. Two pale-ish reds with very different grip.
chardonnay vs sauvignon blanc
Acidity and oak. Round and buttery against sharp and green.
gewurztraminer vs riesling
Aroma intensity. Loud and floral against precise and citrus.
cabernet sauvignon vs merlot
Structure. Firm grip against plush fruit.
A few tips to get more from every glass
- •Taste blind when you can. Knowing the price or producer before you taste biases your perception more than you think.
- •Write down what you smell before you taste. Once the wine is in your mouth, your nose registers flavour differently.
- •Taste at least two wines side by side. Contrast sharpens your perception of acidity, tannin, and body far more than tasting alone.
- •Avoid strong flavours for 30 minutes before tasting. Coffee, mint, and spicy food can numb or distort your palate.
- •Temperature matters. Reds served too warm taste flabby and alcoholic. Whites served too cold hide their aromas. Aim for 14-16C for reds, 8-10C for whites.
Wine tasting FAQ
What is the WSET Systematic Approach to Tasting?
A fixed order for describing any wine: appearance, then nose, then palate, then conclusions about quality and readiness. Following the same order every time keeps you from jumping to a verdict before you have gathered the evidence, and lets any two tasters compare notes on equal terms.
How do I write a wine tasting note?
Work down the grid and record what is there before you record what you think of it. Appearance: clarity, intensity, colour. Nose: condition, intensity, the aromas themselves. Palate: sweetness, acidity, tannin, alcohol, body, flavour and finish. Only then the conclusion.
Is there a free WSET tasting sheet I can print?
Yes. SomeWine publishes a free printable tasting sheet following the same systematic structure, with no signup. Print it or save it as a PDF from your browser.
Do I need to spit when tasting wine?
If you are tasting more than two or three wines in a sitting, yes. Alcohol dulls your palate quickly, and the whole point of the exercise is to keep your perception sharp from the first glass to the last.
In what order should you taste wines?
Sparkling before still, white before red, light before full, dry before sweet, young before old. Each step up in weight, tannin or sugar coats the palate and makes the next, lighter wine seem thin and sour.
What glass should I use for wine tasting?
Any clear, plain glass with a bowl that narrows toward the rim. The narrowing traps aromas so you can smell them, and a clear glass lets you judge colour. The ISO tasting glass is the standard, but a basic tulip-shaped wine glass does the job.
How long does it take to learn to taste wine?
Most people notice a real difference after ten to twenty wines tasted with a grid, especially side by side. Recognising structure (acidity, tannin, body) comes first and quickly. Naming aromas takes longer because it is a vocabulary you build one bottle at a time.
What temperature should wine be for tasting?
Roughly 8 to 10°C for whites and rosé, 6 to 8°C for sparkling, and 14 to 16°C for reds. Too cold hides aromas; too warm makes the alcohol stand out. Slightly cool is the safer mistake, because a wine warms up in the glass.
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Printable WSET tasting sheet
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