Just as with art, food, and music, the more you know about wines the more you will appreciate them. Ultimately, the best evaluation of wines will be your own. The best way to do this is participation in wine tasting events. The ideal conditions for wine tasting begin with a relaxed, comfortable atmosphere including a lack of distractions. It should be clear and twelve ounces capacity is the norm.
Some professionals even use a twenty to twenty-nine ounce glass.
This opens up the aroma and bouquet and allows you to stick your nose into the glass to appreciate this most important sense. A mistake many novices make is to serve wine, especially white wines, too cold. Ideally, white wine should be tasted at 55-60 degrees Fahrenheit and red wines about five degrees warmer . White wines are the easiest to evaluate , reds can challenge or tire your palate sooner , and dessert wines can be most difficult of all. In our monthly tastings we never taste more than six different wines and encourage people to not finish every sample.