Wine tasters when tasting wines are served wines without knowing what color the wine is nor do they know who the maker is and the origin of the wine. This is called “Blind Tasting.”
When wine tasters are trying to determine the similarities and differences they do what is called “Vertical” and “Horizontal” tasting. Vertical are the differences in same wine types but different vintages. Horizontal tasting is wines from the same vintage but different wineries.
The serving temperature for a tasting of wine should be between 60 and 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Keeping this temperature helps with tasting the wines’ flavors. When wine tasting the order of the tasting should be with the sparkling wines, the light wines, and then the heavy whites and heavy reds. Heavy wines have a deep color to them while the sweeter wines are thick and generally leave streaks called “legs” on the side of the glass when it is swirled.
The art of wine tasting is as follows; color, swirl, smell, taste and savor. A wine taster must look for clarity and to do this it is easiest to put the wine against a white background. The wine taster is looking at the components of the wine to determine whether the wine is balanced. Another thing a taster looks for is the quality of the wine or the clarity of the flavor.
Wine tasters can taste several wines at one tasting. This being the case, the tasters do not actually drink the wines since they are alcohol. When tasting the wines the taster holds the wine in his mouth to get the flavor in his taste buds then wine tasters generally spit out the wine after testing. There are several wineries throughout the world where one can visit and taste different wines some wineries will charge a small fee to cover the cost of the tours.