Friday, December 02, 2005
Yesterday was the Wine Appreciation workshop at NTU.. My aim was kinda achieved coz I managed to gain some basic knowledge about wines..Found out that my own preference is light-bodied and medium-bodied wines coz it has less alcoholic content and thus the taste is less strong. We got to taste 5 different wines, 2 white (Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay) and 3 red (Merlot, Shiraz and Carbernet Sauvignon). We managed to pronounce these wine names under the guidance of the moderator. Good quality wines of the five type of wines come mainly from France. The basic wine tasting techniques were introduced, which are divided into 3 main steps: (1) Eye (2) Nose (3) Palate.. We can deduce the alcohol level through wine's "tears" which are the trails going back after swirling.. Also the color, intensity and clarity tell us about the bottle age. It is interestiing to observe that as red wine ages, color fades while for white wine, the reverse occurs. When we nose the wine, we are able to deduce the bottle age. Tasting the wine allows us to detect its sweetness, tannin, acidity, alcohol level and wine's body. Other basic stuff like opening a bottle of wine, detection of corked wine (defective wine), the optimum temperature that wine should be served etc were taught.. Guess we did learn alot of things about wine yesterday. Thanks Alicia for introducing the workshop and got me and Teck a cheaper rate!
