Service Standards

Whether tasting a wine at a seminar or drinking a bottle in the comfort of your own home, all wine should be systematically evaluated on 3 levels: Sight, Nose & Palate. There are various additional components to assess, but these 3 should be the main focus of all evaluations, as they will provide you with the best tools to then accurately describe the wine to the guest, and ultimately make the sale. HOWTOTASTE,EVALUATE&SELLAWINE BESTPRACTICES: Be as descriptive and specific as possible. If you smell apples, try to pinpoint what kind of apple – Yellow? Granny Smith? Fuji? Red Delicious? Apple Jolly Rancher? Dried Apple? If you smell wood, try to pinpoint what kind of wood – Cedar? Oak? Pine? Maple? Charred? Every person’s sensory perceptions are different, thus there are no right or wrong answers. One person may smell kiwi and another may smell mango and another may smell guava. Those are all correct, and the wine could very well smell like all 3 or none of those things to yet another person. The important part is to objectively evaluate the wine, and then speak truthfully and with confidence with the guests

While there are no wrong answers in a classroom or non-restaurant environment, keep in mind that some descriptors may be more appropriate than others while speaking to a guest. Some red wines have a musty, manure-like smell, but perhaps they’d be better described to a guest as “rustic”

The palate can only recognize 5 taste sensations – sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami – but you can smell over 2000 aromas, so smell is as important of a factor as taste when evaluating a wine

The nose is a muscle, and as such, the more you exercise it, the more adept you will become at identifying smells. Smell your food before you eat it, smell a room or a place or a person – the more you practice smelling, the more skilled you’ll get at isolating flavors and aromas

When evaluating a wine, try to at least be able to say something about the fruit, something about the body, and then 1other quality (acidity level, finish, balance). Use 3-4 descriptors at most, and then stop. If the guest wants more information at that point, they will ask, but if you keep rambling, you’re more likely to say something false and/or mislead the guest