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Lesson 2: Tasting

Think back to 1995 with me for a moment.  Do you remember the party scene in the movie, "House Guest," when the befuddled Sinbad is the snobbish "wine expert" tasting wine using the "retronasal" technique of lewdly slurping, swishing and, essentially, gargling the wine?  Wrong, wrong, wrong.

When I asked Tyler about proper tasting methods, I was relieved with his answer: "As long as the wine is in the right glass, all I concern myself with in tasting is whether I like it or not." That's such a refreshing, laid-back answer, isn't it? You either like it, or you don't. Granted, I trust Tyler's nose and palate, because he has been tasting thousands of wines for the last nine years. He explained the only way to develop a taste for wine is to try lots of them -- you don't have to tell me twice.

So lets review so far: proper glassware, smell the wine in the glass, sip the wine. Seems easy enough.