Do you ever feel left out when your friends are enjoying a glass of wine over dinner and you still think it tastes awful? If you thought learning to love wine would happen naturally as you got older, but it still hasn’t happened, you can still learn to have an appreciation for wine. If you want to learn to like wine, try some of these tips.
Serve It Correctly
The right wine glass helps to trap the aroma of the wine, giving you a better experience when you taste the wine. White and red wines should be served in different glasses. If you’re not if you have the right glass, ask a friend who likes wine or a waiter if you’re out. Gently swirl the wine to lift the aromas, and put your nose into the glass to smell it. While smelling the wine isn’t an essential part of enjoying it, the aromas you can smell can start to prepare your tastebuds for the flavour of the wine. It can also give you a better all-round experience of the wine.
Drink It Correctly
Take a sip of the wine. Let the sip flow around and under your tongue to get the full range of the flavour. Swallow, and then breathe in through the mouth to let air flow over your tastebuds, which can cause the flavours to change a little. What can you taste? There are no wrong answers to these questions, but learning to notice different parts of the flavour can help you to appreciate the wine more and start to enjoy it.
Make Notes
When you try new wines, make a note of what you liked and didn’t like about different wines so you can start to notice patterns and know what to look for next time. You might be surprised by what you find you enjoy the most, so it’s well worth continuing to try different styles of wine, and asking friends for recommendations. If you know your friend like similar flavours to you, whether in wine or other drinks, ask them what wine they like to give you a good place to start.
Pair With Food
A lot of people first learn to enjoy wine by pairing it with food. When you’re out for dinner, if you’re in a restaurant with a specialist wine waiter, ask them for a suggestion for a great wine that will match well with your meal. The right wine will enhance and be enhanced by the flavours of the food and you may find you enjoy it far more than just having a glass without food.