How to taste wine without the fuss

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October 22, 2026

On September 28, 2026

You do not need fancy words to taste wine properly. Forget the swirling for show. All you need is a glass, a few quiet minutes, and some attention.

Start with our five simple steps: look at the colour, give it one short swirl, smell it twice, then take a small sip and let it sit on your tongue before you swallow.

Look First

Pour a small glass and hold it against something white, like a napkin. Colour tells you more than people think. A pale wine is usually light and crisp, while a deep colour on a red often means more time in the bottle. Hold it up to natural light, not a yellow bulb, because that changes what you see.

Row of several unlabelled wine bottles with a few wine glasses lined up for a tasting, on a white studio background

Smell Twice

Bring the glass to your nose and breathe in gently, don't force it. The first sniff picks up the obvious stuff, fruit, oak, maybe something floral. Two short sniffs work better than one long one, since your nose tires fast. Swirl gently between sniffs to wake the wine up.

Three wine glasses of red, rosé and white wine side by side for comparison, with a closed bottle behind

Taste Slowly

Now take a proper sip, not a polite little taste. Let it sit on your tongue before you swallow, and notice if it is dry or sweet, soft or sharp. Check our tasting notes guide if you want words for it, though that is not required. A good wine leaves something pleasant behind long after the glass is empty.

A single large wine glass being swirled, with a small glass decanter beside it, on a white studio background

Trust your own taste

You don't need to get this right every time. Some bottles surprise you and some fall flat, and that is part of drinking wine. Try two or three glasses side by side when you are unsure, it makes the differences easier to spot. Our in store tastings work the same way.

Wine glasses of red and white wine on a clean white table, an illustration of a simple tasting setup

Once tasting feels easier on its own, try matching wine with food. A heavy red beside a light salad fights the whole meal, while the same wine beside a braai makes far more sense. We cover this properly in our piece on pairing wine with a braai, but the short version is simple: match the weight of the wine to the weight of the food.