Wine Tasting - Do You Like the Wine or Not?

I live in wine country and enjoy taking a Saturday or Sunday afternoon to go wine tasting. I enjoy the feeling of how life seems to slow down, the scenery is beautiful and of course the tasting of the wine feels like a vacation.

Now, I have heard some people describe wine as stuffy or pretentious - It is true that there are some people out there that take themselves and wine entirely too seriously - don't let them bother you...they're acting like assholes and they have to go home with themselves, you don't! 

Some people are intimidated by the whole wine tasting process - Don't Be!  Wine tasting is a personal journey, a personal preference and should be entirely your own experience. 

Yes, there are ways to hold your glass, swirl your wine, smell your wine, drink your wine, dump your wine, cleanse your pallet etc... So if this information is important to you, I'll share what I know:

• Hold your wine glass by the stem - this will ensure you don't heat the wine with your hands
• Swirl your wine - this has something to do with aerating your wine and the legs. I am sure there is more to this step, but this is what you get from me.
• Smell your wine - stick your nose in your glass and take a big whiff...do you like what you smell??? 
• Drink your wine - take a sip, let it set on your tongue, swallow it, do you like the wine? 
• Dump your wine - this can be done to ensure you don't get inebriated or because you don't like the wine or whatever reason you choose
• Cleanse your pallet - if you want to eat something between wines go ahead

Carol's Wine Tasting

• I do hold my wine glass by the stem - it is a habit.  Don't really care if others do the same or not.
• I swirl my wine for the fun of it - so far in my wine journey I don't care about the legs.
• It makes me happy to smell my wine so I do.  Somtimes all I smell is the wine and nothing else...however sometimes it talks to me and I smell other things. 
• I definitely drink my wine!  We have established I like the flowery description on the back of the bottle, but I don't always taste what they are describing.  I have detected coffee, tar, tobacco, earth, freshly cooked raspberry jam, and chocolate - but not all the time - I usually just taste the wine...and I either like it or I don't.
• I don't dump my wine - I don't want to be wasteful (exception: if I really don't like the wine I have dumped, but this is a rarity).
• If I feel like all the wines are tasting the same, I'll eat something if the winery offers.

Basically, it all comes down to this - Do You Like the Wine Or Not?  How you get to that point is up to you.