Should You Attend an AWS Wine Tasting Event?

 Five Reasons for Attending an AWS Wine Tasting

You’ll learn what it means when someone says “a good wine”

It might sound obvious, but is it really? How do you know what a good wine is if you’ve never been told, or if you’ve never taken the time to experience one? Of course a good wine is one that you appreciate, but a good wine also has to have balance and structure. During an AWS wine tasting you’ll learn how to pay attention to your whole palate. This will help you to recognize what a good wine can provide, even if it’s not to your taste.

Never pay too much (or not enough) for a good wine

Even though more people are aware that good wine doesn’t necessarily cost an arm and a leg, it’s still hard to determine what price to pay for a good bottle, and even more difficult if you’re reading a restaurant wine list where you only get the name and the description. Descriptions can be very far from the truth, and most of the time they come from the winemaker, so they’re not really objective. Also when you see a good bargain in a State Store, how do you know if it’s really a good deal?

With the American Wine Society, you learn about the different appellations, countries, wine makers, classifications, climate, and terroir.  Those things will help you to determine what the price should be for a particular kind of wine.

You’ll have a free check-up of your five senses

Tasting wine is not about drinking wine. At our AWS tastings, we choose good wine and our guests don’t usually spit or dump. Keep in mind, though, that you’ll usually taste quite a few wines.  There’s nothing wrong with using the dump bucket.

Tasting wine is about waking your senses to what happens when they’re in contact with wine. It’s completely the opposite of being drunk. When you’re drunk, you lose all sensibility. That’s why most wine lovers never cross the line.  Unfortunately there’s no way to produce good wine without alcohol and there’s no human adaptation to alcohol.

How wine does tasting test your five senses?

Sight: You study and appreciate the appearance, color, legs, bubbles…
Smell: You define the different aromas in the glass (herbal, fruity, spicy…)
Touch: When feeling the texture or the density of the wine.
Taste: When sipping the wine and when swallowing it if you don’t spit.
Hearing: When you listen to the presenter and hear the information that they’re sharing.

You won’t struggle with food and wine pairings

What do you do when you’re cooking, or when you’re at a restaurant in order to choose the right wine?  At the Fine Wine and Good Spirits store, you ask your sales associate, but they may have been selling shoes at a mall last week.  At a restaurant, you ask the sommelier, but he doesn’t know what you like. Maybe you like soft and sweet, maybe you like bitter and acidic, or maybe he has the right choice but not at the right price for your wallet!

At a wine tasting you’ll learn about grapes specifics, and about appellation and country specifics which will give you an objective way to guess what the taste of a particular wine might be. Of course it’s not an exact science, so you could be wrong, but you’re likely to be right as often as your salesperson or your sommelier. The best thing that you can do is to learn about wine, and make your own choice.  It may not be the choice that a wine connoisseur might make, but it will be right choice for you and your guests.

You’ll meet people and have fun

It’s not true at every wine tasting, but at ours, it is. We like to create a friendly atmosphere, be very easy to understand and we like our guests to be part of the tasting, and to share their impressions. Because, who can say (other than John) that they know everything about wine?

Check the blogspot often for more tips, news, and tasting notices!

http://aws-pittsburgh.blogspot.com/