- Hey guys, I'm Gary Vaynerchuk.
I have been an innovator
and a pioneer in the wine business
from launching one of the first e-commerce wine businesses
to building one of the largest stores in the country,
to becoming one of the first personalities.
What I really care about though
is getting people to try different wines
because this beverage is the most fascinating,
is the most complex, is the most ever changing,
and is the most fun.
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Let's talk about evaluating wine.
I'm going to teach you how to evaluate wine
but I don't want you to become too much of a wine snob
or take it too seriously.
To take wine too serious defeats the point
of all the pleasures that wine actually brings.
Yes, there's a ton to learn.
Everybody's always learning about wine forever
but the reality of the situation is this,
wine is something that we need to enjoy,
and evaluating it is part of the process
of really getting to know it
and really ultimately allowing you to navigate
through the wine world
and find the best deals, find the best values.
Learning about wine really becomes a money saver
and becomes a journey kind of play more than anything else.
So what do you want to do when you evaluate wine?
Things that you want to break down into is looking at it,
smelling it and tasting it
much like we do with food or anything else
that's how we roll but we probably don't think about it.
With wine, it gets a little technical
into these three categories.
Let's start with saying,
the thing that I really like to do a lot
is really look at the wine.
You know, you're looking at it, you're looking at the color
but as you continue to go down the path
you start seeing what's a little bit more golden,
what's a little bit more faint.
In red wines, is it darker? Is it ruby?
What's going on around the edges?
The visual is a fun way to kind of get into the mindset
of about tasting the wine.
Now, what we're going into next
after you kind of give it a good solid look
is probably the thing I care about the most
more than actually drinking it.
Because I'm a kind of guy that really loves the anticipation
and in the wine world, the buildup is the snippy sniff
aka smelling the wine.
Now here's what you want to do.
You've seen this a million times.
People tend to swirl
which is the reason we like to squirrel
is we like to get oxygen in here to break up the wine
and let all the nose
and the flavors kind of come to the surface.
Oxygen is your friend kids, say it with me,
oxygen is your friends.
So oxygen is breaking down the acidity in a white wine
and the tannins in a red wine
letting the flavors come and surface to the top.
Now here's what you want to do.
You need to get your entire schnoz in there
if you really want to win, like this.
I want to make sure you guys are getting this.
I'm talking full contact glass, I even got some on my lip.
Full contact and real inhales.
(Gary inhales)
And then you swirl a little bit more.
(Gary sniffing)
What you're doing there is a couple things.
One, you're picking up on flavors.
It's priming your palate.
You start to salivate a little bit.
And really what it's doing is
really opening up the opportunity for you
to taste the wine even better.
The nose, the snippy sniff is a key component.
If you take anything out of this class, anything,
I can guarantee that the value that you paid for it
will come in the form of you taking the smelling of wine
dramatically more serious than the market does today.
It will make your drinking wine experience
a hell of a lot better.
It will absolutely allow you to taste more.
And all those funky notes you hear like strawberries
and chalk and things of that nature
become more obvious on your palate
because you've primed your nose.
Now first I like to taste the wine straight
the way all of us would drink wine, just drink it.
Cool. We all do that.
It's how we work as humans.
But if you really want to get into evaluating wine,
tasting a wine, what you really want to look for
is finding all the flavors that you can around your palate.
The way to do that is to swish it in your mouth,
almost like a Listerine like environment.
(wine swishing)
(Gary spitting)
Spit bucket.
And so what happens is, it's incredible to me,
and I'm hoping that you're tasting along right now,
how different the wine tastes when you go straight versus,
and we all saw this in sixth grade health class
where they had the tongue and they split up the tongue
and there's all different parts of it.
In the back of my palate, I'm tasting a lot more acidity.
In the middle of my tongue, I'm tasting a lot more apple.
At the tip, I'm getting a little bit more
of that chalkiness, a little bit of that sugar.
So your tongue is picking up on different parts of the wine.
And one of the great things to do
for a lot of my friends they'll call me or text me like,
"I hate my wine."
I'm like, "Swish it, see if you like it better."
They either like better or they like it less
but it teaches them that there's an alternative.
And here's some good news.
The way to become a great taster is to test
and taste and try more wine.
So the process a hell a lot of fun as well.
So again, to recap it.
you've got a very hardcore visual aspect
but let's be honest
that's a little bit of a nerdy kind of thing.
It's kind of just fun to like build up the anticipation.
The snippy sniff key, the underrated aspect of tasting
and evaluating wines in the world.
I mean I've gotten to a place in my career
that to where when I smell a wine
without knowing what it is, half the time,
20 to 50% of the time,
I know what the wine is just on smell.
That's how big importance it was for me
and I think for anybody that's taking wine serious.
And then finally thinking about almost like exercising
when you're tasting and making sure the wine
is hitting all of your palate, all of your tongue,
your entire mouth to open up all the flavors
that a wine has to offer.
Let's do a little like terminology 101
just for kicks and giggles.
You know, just not sure where everybody is...
Vintage, if you don't know is the year a wine is made.
So this is 2013, that's the vintage.
As you progress in your wine drinking journey,
things like acidity and tannin
will become more obvious to you.
You'll start tasting them.
You know the acidity is not super complicated.
When you drink a seltzer
you're tasting that sharpness, right?
You're getting that fizz.
Acidity has that kind of dynamic on your palate.
And then the tannin structure is that bitterness
that so many of you struggle with in red wine.
That eventually becomes something you like.
Palates evolve, and if you're just starting out in wine,
recognize this, you'll be able to get through
and you'll be looking forward
to the acidity and the tannins.
Minerality is another thing that I think
you need to start establishing
and understanding for or try to discover.
Minerality is a core component flavor profile in wines.
And it really comes down to, the best common terminology,
is really the way rocks, soil tastes.
Soil a little bit in the red wines
but rocks really truly chalk rocks
and things of that nature.
So if you're ambitious, if you're an explorer,
I really do think licking rocks, I mean it,
or chiseling down a rock and eating a little rock dust
is a very good thing for your palate
'cause you can start picking it up on wines.
And it is a core foundational thing.
You'll start referencing and start looking for it
if you like the kind of wines that I like in wines.
You're going to hear it a million times,
"Oak really breaks down into wood."
I think it is in your best interest to go outside
if you live in a suburb and look at a tree,
take off a little piece and bite it.
I'm not kidding if you've not bit wood,
if you've not licked a tree,
you are not going to be able to pick up on the oak flavors
that are the backbone of wine.
Wine is very often stored in oak casks,
sometimes red wines for a couple of years
and so it's extracting the nuances of that.
And the reason so many Americans love cabernet
and chardonnay is because of oak.
It's giving that smokiness
it's giving that kind of creaminess that you see in wine.
And I'm going to talk to you about structure
and finish in wines.
These are terms you're going to hear over and over
as you explore your journey in the wine world.
The structure is the way
a wine maker puts together a wine.
And so for me, structure's imperative.
For you to like evaluate structure takes time.
It's context.
Did it have a lot of nice fruit in the beginning
to welcome me to the wine?
Did I taste anything in the middle?
It cut what we call a mid palate.
And then how does it finish?
What's the last thing I taste?
Did anything outbalance each other?
Is the fruit balanced with the tannins
or is the fruit balanced with the acidity in a white wine?
Because if the tannins are too bitter,
then I'm not going to like it, then you are not,
definitely not going to like it.
Is the acidity too much?
Is the alcohol out of whack?
Which then makes it hot
and then I feel I'm taking like a shot of bourbon
with a little bit of grapes on top of it.
These are the things we're looking for
in that complete package.
That is what structure is.
Finish, a term that you'll hear a ton from a sommelier
or your wine nerd friends.
Finish is kind of the last thing you're tasting
and how long do you taste it?
There are many wines that you can taste...
And not this one, but there's many wines that you can taste
literally that quickly where I said,
"And not this one," that you've stopped tasting it.
That's it, like it's gone.
You tasted it while it was there
but think of it as almost like water.
Like you're just not tasting that much anymore.
The more you can still taste that wine on your tongue,
on your palate, the longer finish it has.
And so the reason I'm kind of pausing and looking very there
I'm going to kind of stunned this $13 wine
has this long of a finish speaks to a good quality wine
maybe a value in itself.
So a finish really is that last lingering flavor
you get out of wine and how long you taste it
and was it smooth or was it bitter?
Very, very important.
The finish is a massively important thing
for you to pay attention to and I think earlier on
even if you're beginning stages
probably a thing that most people can articulate
in their wine journey.
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- [Narrator] Thanks for watching.
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