More color in a white wine means that it is aged more and has more flavor. When white wine is aged too long it turns brown. When white wine is brown it is a sign that the wine has spoiled and gone bad. When looking at the color of the wine always ask yourself, "How clear, dull, deep, or bright is the wine?" Another way to find out more about the wine from just looking at it is inspecting the rim color. To get the rim color, tilt the wine glass and if you look at the edge of the wine you see a different color. If the rim color is purple it means the wine is young, and if the rim color is an orange to brown it means the wine is old and mature. Looking at the wine is an important step in tasting wine. It gives you a backbone to the taste, looking at the wine gives you a preview of the actual taste of the wine.
The next step is not as important as the rest, but still vital to the taste. The next step to do in tasting wine is to swirl. Swirling the wine tells you how much alcohol is in the wine, and the level of sweetness. Swirling the wine creates a good body of the wine. Legs are the droplets that come down the sides of the glass when swirled. When you swirl legs should appear. Good legs indicate thicker body and higher alcohol content or a higher level of sweetness. Swirling the wine can add to the preview of the taste of the wine. .
Smelling the wine is one of the more important steps in tasting wine, it is also the next step. Each wine has hundreds of different smells. It takes lots of practice to know how to describe the wine. Different people have different noses. Some people may smell different things in the same wine such as fruitiness, tanginess, or even bitterness. If you skip this step when tasting wine the next step, sipping will be affected. It is best not to skip smelling the wine. Right before you sniff the wine, make sure you slightly swirl the wine again. Swirling the wine releases molecules that contain the aroma.
