FAQ everything you wanted to know about wine and wine tasting

Tasting is an art that you can achieve in three stages:

1. Look: first of all, it’s a pleasure for the eyes! By examining the wine, you can assess its age and origin by paying attention to its clarity, brilliance and colour.
2. Smell: use your nose to determine the character of a wine by the aromas and intensity it gives off.
3. Taste: appreciate the structure of the wine, i.e. the flavours, intensity and balance of the taste.

For more information, discover the art of wine tasting from Hachette Vins

To obtain this elixir, whether red or white, five stages are necessary:

1. The harvest: this is when the grapes are picked. Cut by hand (or rarely by machine), the bunches are then sorted to remove any rotten, over-ripe or under-ripe fruit.
2. Pressing: the grapes are pressed to obtain the must, i.e. the freshly pressed grape juice with the skins and seeds. For red wine, the juice remains in contact with the skins to develop its aromas, while for white wine the juice is quickly separated from the skins so as not to be tainted.
3. Fermentation: the must is then set aside to ferment naturally for 6 to 12 hours using wild yeasts present in the air. Fermentation continues until all the sugars have been converted into alcohol. This process can last from 10 days to a month, or even longer, depending on the conditions and the type of wine being made.
4. Clarification: this process allows solid residues (dead yeast cells, tannins, etc.) to be removed. The wine is then transferred to a barrel or vat for subsequent clarification by fining or filtration. By adding clay, for example, or using filters, the wine is washed of impurities. It is then transferred back to another vat for bottling or maturation.
5. Maturation and bottling: if necessary, the wines are kept in barrels or vats to finish maturing, in order to obtain more pronounced flavours. Once maturation or clarification is complete, the wine can be bottled. The rest of the process is more familiar: labelling, selling and tasting.

To find out more, visit the Cité des Climats et Vins de Bourgogne for detailed explanations of the area, how the wines are made, the climats, the aromas… you can also sample the wines.

Smelling the wine allows you to determine its character based on the intensity of the aromas. There are two olfactory tests:

1. the first nose: smell the wine without aerating it by holding your glass still; you will smell the most volatile aromas.
2. The second nose: aerate the wine by swirling it in the glass (you can start by swirling it on a table) to increase the aromas tenfold and reveal complex aromatic notes.

Laying wine down preserves it. Storing wine horizontally prevents oxidation. The liquid moistens the cork, preventing it from crumbling, drying out or shrinking. However, keeping your bottle upright will not prevent cork taint. The influence of cork taint is not due to the position in which the bottle is stored, but to the alteration of the cork. If it is contaminated, the taste will be altered.

Bringing the wine into contact with oxygen softens the tannins, releases the aromas and harmonises the structure of the wine, resulting in a balance of flavours on the palate. A few minutes’ aeration is enough for Pinot Noirs. White Chardonnays and Burgundies require 15 to 30 minutes.

If you’re a Burgundy lover, you’ll certainly say Burgundy wines! But without getting into rivalry, the ‘best’ wine depends above all on your tastes… and what you eat. In Burgundy, we usually work with a single grape variety: Pinot Noir for the reds, Chardonnay for the whites. Each wine draws its personality from its climate (a plot of vines with a well-defined terroir), resulting in subtle, fine and elegant wines. In Bordeaux, complex blends are favoured, particularly for the reds, which may combine up to four grape varieties (Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, etc.). These are powerful, well-structured wines, often made for laying down. Rather than pitting them against each other, it’s best to choose according to your tastes and your dishes:

• Red Bordeaux: ideal with grilled red meats, game or dishes in sauce.
• Red Burgundy: perfect with poultry, mushrooms or light stews.
• White Bordeaux: go well with fish in sauce, seafood or hard cheeses.
• White Burgundy: sublime with shellfish and poultry in cream sauce.

It’s hard to say which is the ‘best’ Grand Cru in Burgundy: it all depends on your tastes, the moment, and the dish that accompanies it. What is certain is that the region boasts some of the most prestigious wines in the world, spread between the Côte de Beaune and the Côte de Nuits.Côte de Beaune: Corton; Corton-charlemagne; Bâtard-montrachet; Bienvenues-bâtard-montrachet; Montrachet. Côte de Nuits: Chambertin; Clos-de-vougeot; Echezeaux; Richebourg; Romanée-conti; La-grande-rue.

If you want to learn how to taste wine or expand your knowledge of this captivating world, there are several options available to you in and around Beaune:

• The Cité des Climats et des Vins de Bourgogne (Beaune)

An immersive, educational venue for all levels: discover aromas, tasting methods, the Burgundy vineyards and their Grands Crus through courses, walks, sensory analyses and oenological initiations.

• The Château de PommardV School

A training centre offering the prestigious and internationally recognised WSET® (Wine & Spirit Education Trust). You can follow certified courses, from beginners to advanced levels, to master tasting, viticulture and winemaking.

• Sensation Vin (Beaune)

Created by Damien and Céline, this centre offers wine-tasting courses from 1h30 to 2 days, in small groups or tailor-made, with blind tastings, wine tours of the vineyards and immersive experiences around the Grands Crus.

3 wine tasting courses in and around Beaune to find out more

In Burgundy, two main grape varieties reign supreme:

• Pinot Noir: the king of Burgundy red wines. Its juice is naturally colourless, but is tinted during maceration with the skins.
• Chardonnay: with its light skin and flesh, it is used for white wines.

But Burgundy is also home to a variety of lesser-known but equally interesting secondary grape varieties:

• Aligoté: a white grape variety, often used for the famous Kir (mixed with crème de cassis). It forms the basis of the Bouzeron AOC.
• Gamay: mainly grown in southern Burgundy, it produces light, fruity red wines.

These grape varieties, combined with the richness of Burgundy’s ‘climats’, offer an incredible range of styles and personalities to discover along the Route des Grands Crus.

Toasting wine is a tasting technique that consists of taking a small sip, slightly hollowing out the cheeks and letting a trickle of air enter through the mouth. This oxygenates the wine in the mouth and releases all its aromas. The word“grumer” comes from “grume”, which refers to the skin of the grape. Some people prefer another approach: ‘chewing’ the wine, as you would chew food, to fully appreciate its texture and structure. It’s up to you to choose the method that suits you best: there are no strict rules, just the pleasure of discovery.

The history of wine dates back more than 8,000 years to the Caucasus and the Near East. Its invention is thought to have come about by chance: in the Neolithic period, man began to domesticate the wild vine, gradually discovering how to master the fermentation of the grape. The transition from the wild vine to the cultivated vine is thought to have taken place between the 6th and 5th millennia BC, marking the beginning of viticulture as we know it today.