It has been said that there is no wrong way to taste wine. Sorry, I disagree. Let’s take a closer look at the question, “Is there a wrong way to taste wine?” The quick answer is yes. The trick part of that question is that drinking wine is not tasting. The term “tasting wine” assumes that you want to engage your brain and evaluate the qualities of a particular wine or in most cases multiple wines. Drinking on the other hand implies that you want to relax and simply enjoy some wine. Does that mean that tasting is not enjoyable? Absolutely not. In fact, if you are not enjoying it you are probably doing it wrong.

Did you know that tasting wine does not even require drinking? Yes, I know that spitting out perfectly good wine seems to make no sense. In fact at one point in my life I would have thought it to be a sin. But now I attend multiple events and can be seen spitting or dumping. Why would I do that? It is so I can evaluate wine without the side effects caused by alcohol. I remember wine tasting events in the not too distant past that I would come home from with bottles of wine that I had purchased because I thought  they were stellar at the time only to find out later that my judgement had been clouded.

I have also been around wine and liquor long enough to know that if your drinking is putting you or someone else in harm’s way it is also wrong. That is why we all need to be aware of over-consumption and possible negative side effects.

The simplest form of tasting wine is to decide if you like the wine or not. The Wine2Duel system of testing can help with that. There are legitimate reasons why you should want more from your tasting experience. It may be that you want to document the results. This is handy to study the effects of aging or looking at differences between vintages, for example. It may be that you want to compare notes with other people. This can make for a fun party! The Wine2Duel system allows for that also.

I believe that if you care enough about wine to actually take the time to taste, then you are also looking to expand your knowledge of wine. That means that if you are tasting wine but you are not enjoying it, or you are not learning for the experience, and you are not drinking responsibly then you are doing it wrong.