#4: Finish
Lastly, and maybe most easily, another way to determine if your wine is good is to consider its length or finish. You simply swallow the wine and see how long the flavor lasts on your palate – the longer it lingers, the better the wine.
If, once you’ve swallowed, the flavor drops right off and goes away in a split second, it’s probably not such high quality. But if you can still taste appealing characteristics 2, 3, or 4 seconds after – you may be onto something. And when you can still taste the wine after 10 or more seconds, you may have hit the quality wine jackpot!
So next time you want to know if a wine is good, crack open the bottle and consider these 4 elements: smell, balance, depth of flavor, and finish and you’ll know immediately if it’s a good wine – and that’s worth drinking to!
Cheers!
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Tara Devon O’Leary is a sommelier, author of the popular blog WinePassionista.com, and co-host of the online wine show “The Punch Down.” Tara holds a Diploma certification from the world-renowned Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET) where she is also a Certified Educator. She is accredited by the Society of Wine Educators as a Certified Specialist of Wine, is a member of the Circle of Wine Writers, and has served as judge at major annual international wine competitions. Tara's advice is delivered with a dash of flair, heaps of enthusiasm, and zero snobbery.
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