SENSING WINE FOR ENJOYMENT
Wine has evolved over the years into a sensory thing just as food has evolved with its taste sensations. We use our five senses to enjoy foods and wines in today’s world. Unlike hundreds of years ago when food and wine were just something to consume to stay alive, our world has provided we consumers the ability to sense and enjoy creations. We use our sense of sight, smell, touch/feel, hearing and palette to enjoy from our perspective all that the food and vino have to offer. With our eyes, we look at the beauty of the wine and food. We can see the color and clarity of the wine as we sense characteristics in the wine we love. The straw color of a Chardonnay indicating a buttery wine or the lighter red color of a Pinot Noir indicating less tannin or the shrimpy color of a Rose’ bring pleasure to our mind through our eyes. With our ears, we hear the popping of a cork while opening a new bottle of wine to hearing the babble of wine as it trickles down the side of a glass to the soft fizz of a sparkling wine sending up bubble to the wine surface. Our ears provide some additional enjoyment to our minds of the enjoyment of wines. Once we pour that first glass of the “God’s Nectar,” we can smell the components of the wine. Those elements come out as we swirl the wine around in our glass (careful not to spill) which aerates the wine and allows the esters and aromatics of the wine to escape into the glass and beyond. Our nose can sense around 4,000 sensations communicating to our mind a myriad a sensations from peach to pear to green apple to dark cherry to tobacco to leather to vanilla to a dry desert after a morning rain. Your nose actually pick up more sensations that you can understand. Your palette aka mouth and tongue can only pick up five sensations being sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and savory. However, your mouth and nose are linked so close together which provides the sensation that you are tasting peach when you tongue says sweet and your nose says peach telling your mind PEACH! The foods you eat and pair with your wine are so interchangeably intertwined between your tongue with five sensations and your nose with thousands of sensations that your mind senses the end product of the combination of food and wine. The final sense is touch which is felt at the back of your mouth. Is the wine light with a sensation of a second or two or does it have a heavy feel where the back of your mouth can sense the wine for a while giving an impression to your brain of weight.
We can take these understandings of how our senses works with our mind by evaluating and judging wine using the technique of Swirl the wine in your glass to open up the esters and aromatics, Smell the wine with your nose, Sip the wine into your mouth where the tongue and nose can sense the wine simultaneously, then Swish that wine in your mouth to open up the vino, and then sense the wine on your tongue as to its weight while carefully inhaling across the wine on your cupped tongue to exhale through your nose to use y our full sense in enjoying your wine. These are called the five “S”’s of wine. I hope you are enjoying your wine and foods more with this understanding.
Texas Restaurant Serving Texas Wine
Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse at 5061 Westheimer in Houston proudly serves Llano Estacado Vivano Red Blend. I enjoy the big, bold taste of this Texas Red Blend, making it one of my favorite go-to Texas Red Blend. This wine should pair wonderfully with the outstanding steaks from this internationally recognized steakhouse. More and more Texas Restaurants are going to Texas wines for a reason. Local wine pairs great with local foods!