Our Spanish students enjoy a wine-tasting course. Cheers!

Last Monday, 27th February, our Spanish students stayed at Instituto Hemingway after class to take part in a wine-tasting session with our in-house wine expert.
We met up in one of the classrooms, where we found the wine already waiting for us. Since we were drinking red wine, Alfredo opened the first bottle to let it ‘breathe’. Meanwhile, he explained to us the basics of wine-tasting. We found out about wine regions beyond the famous Rioja and Navarra, such as Ribera del Duero, Rueda and Campo de Borja. We also learned about wine-making, the different types of grape and the importance of the climate, region and earth to the wine’s flavour.
An odd fact that we found out was that all wines are white to start off with, and that it’s only the skin of the grapes that gives it its red colour. This also means that it is healthier than white wine.

Next, we had to excercise our senses: sight, smell and taste. A wine has many different scents and subtle notes which can be detected and tasted. We smelled 13 small bottles to see if we could distinguish between the variety of scents which different wines have. The range of scents stretched from strawberry, blackberry, vanilla and woodsmoke, to pepper and coffee, and even to less pleasant scents such as humidity. Even liquorice could be detected by a good palatte. These scente say a great deal about the type, the age and the quality of a wine.
After about an hour (the recommended time that red wine should be allowed to breathe), we put the theory into practice. First, the wine had to breathe in the glass, so we shook the glass to bring in oxygen. We analysed the colour and scent of the wine, and sipped it to try to distinguish the flavour of the different scents. A daunting task for beginner wine-tasters…

Curiously, we all immediately had our personal preferences.
Some preferred the Tempranillo, whilst others liked the older wines like Boquet. And so we went home feeling like expert wine connoisseurs.

In the next Pintxos Tour, we’ll take care to examine the wine properly.