How to Blag Your Way Through a Wine Tasting – Our Top 5 Tips

The Inspiring Wines Guide

How to blag your way through a wine tasting!

Have you ever been to a wine tasting? Ever wanted to go but have always shied away on the grounds you think you’d be out of your depth?

Well fear not, here are our Top 5 ‘inspiring’ tips to ensure you can blag your way comfortably through any tasting event and come out looking like a proper Jancis Robinson…

Once the sole territory of the wine trade or seen as an event for ‘experts only’, it seems that wine tasting events are becoming much more widespread and are particularly popular these days as a corporate social event. No bad thing in our opinion, and it is obvious why they are popular; events are generally informal, everyone has a drink, there is plenty to talk about and they are relatively inexpensive affairs. It’s not just dusty old men swirling and spitting into buckets anymore, they can be a very good night out, although if spitting into a bucket is your thing you can fill your boots!

And so on to our blagging advice to get you through a tasting.

One of the main problems that can arise at a wine tasting is there is usually someone in the group who considers themselves to be a ‘wine-buff’ and who will continually use purposefully unclear and abstract descriptions to allude to a wealth of wine knowledge.

Some of the classics and some of my most favourite ‘ridiculous’ descriptions I have heard over the years are:

• Unctuous (what?)
• Confident (eh?)
• Supple (really?)
• Serious (oh come on!)
• Cacophony (now that’s just getting silly…)

If you encounter such behaviour at your event, a note of caution, it could be another ‘blagger’. If that is the case then be prepared to out-blag, there is much kudos to be had if you can out-blag a blagger! But always be careful not to be on the wrong end of an out-blagging manoeuvre…

The key here is not to be discouraged, we’re here to bust the myths and show you bluffing your way through a wine tasting is really easy to do (as well as a lot of fun…) and if you have a mind to, you can learn plenty.

The Inspiring Wines top 5 tips to blag a wine tasting:

1. Confidence is king!

Confidence is key to any blagging activity but particularly blagging your way through a wine tasting. As long as you are not talking about actual facts but are rather talking descriptively about the wine you are tasting, you can pretty much get away with saying anything, as long as you do it with confidence. Why?

Because there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in tasting a wine, as with tasting anything it’s all completely subjective. So whatever you say, just say it loud and with confidence. You’ll have everyone nodding with you in agreement thinking you’re the next Oz Clarke.

2. Get A Thesaurus

If you really want to come across as an expert in wine tasting, then you’re going to have to have done some preparation beforehand, ideally with a thesaurus. Phrases such as ‘It’s nice’ or words like ‘juicy’, ‘chocolatey’ or ‘sweet’ just won’t cut it and can mark you out as an amateur. You need to use much more descriptive words than this. Take some inspiration from the wonderfully eccentric Jilly Goolden who in the past has used all of the the following:

• Wooden bra
• Absolute mangoes
• A wheelbarrow full of ugli fruit
• Sweaty gym shoes on hot tarmac

One of my particular favourites I heard recently was a Northern Rhône Côte Rôtie as having notes of ‘sweaty man’!

Where as I’m not condoning the use of any the above, you can get a bit creative with your descriptions, there is an argument that says the madder the description, the more of an expert you’ll seem. (I believe it’s referred to in wine circles as ‘Gooldens Law’)

3. Visualise

The first step in assessing a wine is always to look at the colour. Now we both know that you’re just staring at a glass of wine, but put an inquisitive look on your face and you immediately look like you know what you are doing. Add in a few “hmmms” and you’ll really look the part. Holding up to the light is always recommended especially if you combine it with a zoom in and out action.

4. Important! – Don’t Forget to Swirl and Sniff

The most often skipped step in wine tasting is the swirl, a classic ‘school boy error’. When you have the glass flat on the table, take hold of the bottom stem confidently and give it a vigorous swirl. Only do this for a couple of seconds though, it’s a wine tasting. You’re not Tom Cruise in Cocktail. Then, don’t be afraid to get your nose in. Not literally in the wine, just in the glass itself. And have a good sniff, always good to stare slightly into the middle distance at this point…

5. It Pays To Be Over The Top

Now the taste, and whether you decide to spit or swallow, it’s time to vocalise your views on the wine. Armed to the teeth with your descriptive words gleaned from your thesaurus research, you should now announce these confidently and with relish. Be like a Shakespearean actor, eloquently delivering your views on this wine (even though you probably don’t have a clue what you are on about). Make sure you utilise an actor stance for this, feet slightly apart, on the balls of your feet and project!..Think Simon Callow delivering Hamlet or better still Brian Blessed delivering almost anything.

The room will stare at you in awe. You’ll be lauded as someone who really knows their wine because the secret of the blag and being thought of as an expert at a wine tasting is actually not what you say… it’s how you say it.

 

Of course, I may have my tongue somewhat in my cheek as I write this but here at Inspiring Wines we want to cut through the nonsense and we always want people to be enjoying their wine. Wine and wine tastings are for everyone and not just people sporting pastel coloured cords! (You know who you are..!)

A wine tasting is a great way to enjoy your wine. Don’t worry if you think your knowledge is lacking, tastings are in the most part very informal, it is a myth that you’ll get multiple glasses of wine thrust in front of you to ‘blind taste’ as you walk in the door. That almost never happens…

But what you will get is to taste some lovely wine, meet some interesting people and you may come across something new that you love. If you are still concerned about going to one it is worth bearing in mind that you probably are not the only one in the room who is trying a blag!

Dean Spencer – Director – Inspiring Wines

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