Becoming a good wine taster means, first of all, practicing a lot as well as keeping memory and senses well trained. This result can be obtained, obviously, by tasting as many wines as possible. Contrary to common belief, tasters do not assess exceptional or high quality wines only: in order to realize the magnificence of a wine it is also necessary to know - and recognize - its exact opposite, that is lesser quality wines. Every taster knows the educational and professional value offered by a faulty wine: it is a chance to learn to recognize them and sometimes faults in wine are so subtle which require a well trained nose in order to be detected. No matter this can be considered obvious and useless, it is good to remember a great wine is, first of all, a wine having no flaws. The capacity of recognizing faults and therefore the capacity of recognizing their absence, would suggest a concept expressed more than 2,500 years ago by Lao Zi in its famous Dao De Jing: «In the world everyone knows the beauty as beauty and therefore they realize ugliness; everyone knows the good as good and therefore they realize the evil». Such a consideration, even though it can be considered obvious, reminds about the importance of difference and comparison. Likewise great wines can be realized because we recognize bad wines.

 Whoever is interested in improving one's own tasting skills should try to take advantage from any circumstance in which it is possible to assess a wine, including the situations that could appear as inappropriate at first. Visits to wineries, meals had at restaurants, dinners at friends' houses and wine-food events are just few examples that can provide good opportunities to learn something new. These situations do not provide, of course, the best conditions required for a proper wine tasting, however they however teach something. Keeping your senses continuously trained also means always having new wines available for tasting and, unfortunately, this also means investing some money - even lots of money - and this is not always possible. The best thing would be tasting a wine in ideal conditions of concentration and in a proper environment, as well as having proper tools at hand. Even though it is not possible to anyone to have a specific tasting room, it is however possible to organize useful and reliable wine tasting at home.

	Blind tastings provide the best results

 In case the economic factor represents a problem for the purchasing of wines, it is a good idea to start a tasting group made of friends who wish to improve their knowledge about sensorial wine tasting. In this way it is possible to share costs for the purchasing of wines and therefore it will be possible to have a higher number of wines available in order to start interesting comparisons and discussions. Starting a wine tasting group is however useful, not only because of costs sharing for the purchasing of wine bottles. The possibility of comparing one's own opinions and sensations about a wine with the other members is useful in order to understand our tasting skills and limits, in other words, a tasting group let every member to improve his or her skills. No matter of the goal of the group, wine samples can be tasted autonomously, without interfering on the tasting job of others, or tasted all together by sharing impressions and opinions during the wine tasting.

 In the first case it will be possible to compare one's opinions about a wine with the other members at the end of its tasting, or after all the wines scheduled for the session have been tasted. In the second case the tasting is done in an “open” way where every member of the group expresses his or her opinion as the wine is being tasted therefore starting a discussion about that wine. In both cases the results are useful for the education and improvement of one's own tasting skills, however it is good to remember that in the second case, the open tasting method, the risk of being conditioned by opinions of others is pretty high and one can end up perceiving aromas he or she does not perceive at all. The way a tasting is done in a group also depends by their goals. Individual tasting certainly is more formal and however allow the comparison with all the other components to be done at the end of tasting. Open tasting certainly is more fun and, despite the fact it however offers an occasion for learning and improving, also allows to spend some good time in company of friends while remembering the goal of the meeting is to taste wine and not to drink wine.

 Even though you decide to organize an informal tasting with your friends, this does not mean you have to neglect caring about all the aspects necessary for a profitable tasting. The first aspect to take care of is deciding the “subject” of the tasting in order to ensure good and useful issues for comparison and discussion. This means wines to be tasted should have one or more characteristics in common, such as “Chardonnay from Bourgogne”, “Chianti Classico 2001”, “Franciacorta and Champagne”, “Rose wines from Salento” and so on. The subject of the tasting can also include vertical tastings (a specific wine of the same producer but of different vintages) or horizontal tasting (the same wine, for example a Barolo, of different producers and belonging to the same vintage). It would make no sense to compare wines belonging, for example, to different types (for examples white, red and sweet wines) having no characteristics in common: they would simply not offer any reason for comparison or discussion saved the fact of being different one from each other.

Taking notes during tasting is useful for improving the taster's capacities

 In general terms every wine tasting has the goal of getting two results: the qualitative assessment of organoleptic and sensorial characteristics of a wine as well as the qualitative determination related to other wines by means of comparative considerations. The evaluation of organoleptic characteristics is done during the first phase, when the wine is being analytically and exclusively examined for its qualities. At the end of this examination follows the qualitative and quantitative comparison in relation to other wines. This second phase, in which it could be thought every wine tasting must necessary include at least two wines in order to allow comparisons, can also be done in case there is only one wine to be tasted. In this specific case the comparison is done with the taster's memory and with the experience gained during all the previous tastings. Qualitative comparison, for example, focuses on the relation between intensity and strength of specific sensorial stimuli, such as intensity of aromas or flavors, whereas qualitative comparison allows the determination of what sample is to be considered the best by analyzing, for example, elegance of aromas, gustatory balance and the nature of possible faults.

 These goals can be obtained in a more direct and immediate way in case are being tasted more wines during the same event: for this reason it is appropriate to have a specific subject in order to make possible the comparison of the qualities of samples being examined. It should be observed that comparison also means comparing differences among wines. It could be organized a tasting having the subject “red wines produced with Italian grapes” in which will be evaluated four wines from four different areas, such as Nebbiolo delle Langhe, Sagrantino di Montefalco, Aglianico del Vulture and Cannonau di Sardegna. Four completely different wines, although all being red, in which comparative tasting offers the opportunity to study the qualities of each wine and the aspects which differentiate one from each other. The same concept can also be applied to wines produced with the same grapes but coming from different areas in order to compare the differences determined by the territory factor.

 The number of wines to be tasted in a single session generally depends on the goal, however in case of home wine tasting it seems to be appropriate having not more than six samples. It should be remembered a profitable sensorial tasting, done with attention and concentration, can be very hard for subjects not accustomed to this kind of activity. It should also be remembered that everyone can be subject to sensorial inurement - in particular olfactory - which can take place after a long and continuous sensorial perception. Even in case the meeting is not formal, it is indispensable the wines are to be blind tasted in order to not influence the evaluation of every taster: even the most insignificant clue can be cause of prejudices. For this reason it is necessary to remove the capsules from the bottle which can be put in a bag in order to conceal both the shape and the label. It could be participants know the wines to be evaluated in advance, however it is good to hide the samples from view in order to diminish as much as possible the recognizability of the bottles and of wines.

 In group tasting a good system is to have two persons doing this operation. The first person, without being seen by others, will put bottles in bags, uncorked and without capsules. The second person, once again without being seen by others, will shuffle the original order of bags and then will assign an identification number on each of them. In case the tasting is done by just one person, it can be asked someone to put bottles in the bags and to number them. The room chosen for the tasting must be sufficiently enlightened and possibly well aerated as well, there must not be any extraneous smell, such as in case of kitchen after its usage. Participants will not smoke, both for not compromising their sensorial capacities and, in particular, for not spoiling the air in the room. For the same reason, it is also recommended no participant makes use of particularly aggressive perfumes.

 The tasting will be done in a table in which will be put a table-cloth, preferably white, useful for a correct analysis of wine's aspect. In every seat will be put wine glasses, one for every sample to be tasted. It is better to use tasting glasses - such as ISO tasting glass - and it is however advisable that all tasters have the very same type and model of glass in order to ensure a common condition for the evaluation. Wine glasses will be identified with the same numbers assigned to bags. It will also made sure to provide enough space among seats in order to allow the use of notepads for writing comments about every sample. In the center of the table it is good to have a container to be used for emptying glasses or to allow tasters who do not want to swallow wine to expel the sample being examined. It can be used, for example, an ice bucket, an empty flower vase or a pot. In the table will be also present one or more baskets with bread - with a neutral taste - to be used between one tasting and another in order to cleanse the oral cavity and to prepare it for the next wine.

 A member of the group will be responsible of the service of wines and will begin pouring the sample number one in the glass number one. Before pouring the wine it will speak aloud the number of the sample being served therefore allowing participants to write down the number in their notepads. After having served the last participant, the bottle is brought back together with all the others. The wine is now being examined by tasters in one of the ways discussed above: in complete autonomy or by starting an open discussion among all participants. In the second case you will soon realize a “simple” glass of wine can start a discussion which is most of the times endless. In this case it is easy the spirit of competition could prevail over the real goal of tasting, and this may happen when in the group there are persons whose goal is to appear better and more expert than others. For this reason when you decide to organize a group wine tasting, it is good to scrupulously choose participants while making sure all the members have the very same motivations and interests.

 After having tasted the first sample, the person responsible for service will pour the wine number two in the glass number two and the operation will be repeated until the end of the tasting. At this point - and before showing the identity of bottles - it is always useful to start a comparative discussion about each sample while trying to emphasize good and bad qualities of each wine in relation to all the others. It can also be created a ranking for all wines by assigning a score which can be the sum of the scores of each taster. For example, it could be assigned a score from 1 to 10 representing the overall value of the wine according to each aspect of the tasting. Bottles will now be drawn from their bags and therefore revealing their identity while participants will write down the name, vintage and producers in their notepads thus replacing the numbers. In this phase participants will be surprised and this will certainly be a reason for discussions, disappointments and wonders. The participants should remember about the cultural and educational purpose of tasting, as well as about the occasion of having spent some good time in company of friends. Have fun and happy tasting!