By G. W. Smikle
Tasting wines and drinking wines are two completely different endeavors as far as objectives are concerned. Wine tasting is deliberative in nature and involves very thoughtful evaluation of a wine’s properties such as its texture, aging, flavor, aroma and coloring among other things.
Wine drinking on the other hand is basically about consuming and appreciating the overall taste of a wine with little or no other consideration to its other subtle properties. There is no analysis as to texture, coloring, aging, etc. In the process of consuming a wine, one normally seeks to consume that which is pleasant to the taste as opposed to tasting where choice is hardly based on degree of enjoyment. So wine drinking is more about the pleasure that comes from consuming. While tasting is more about taking pleasure from evaluating the smell, appearance, taste and other components of the wine and being able to form expert opinion about each wine based on these findings or qualities.
Wine tasting can be organized around events, parties or even competitions. There are hundreds of wine tasting events held over the world each year and some of these have their own themes and quite a bit of dedicated followers. Wine drinking on the other hand is normally associated with some other notion such as a dinner or people who have just decided to get together and have a good time. So wine tasting can be seen as a very structured exercise while mere wine drinking is not necessarily about anything being organized. People just do it for the fun that wine consumption brings, whatever that fun may be.
Another pertinent comparison between the two exercises is, with wine tasting this normally involves experts in all facets of wine, while in wine drinking those involved, even if they are experts at tasting, normally do it for the pleasures of the palate. Finally, wine tasting normally involves the sampling of a number of different wines, and in fact it is rare that any of the wines are even swallowed.
Wine drinking tend to involve one or at most only a few wines as consuming different wines tend to distort the taste of the next drink, and since the exercise is primarily about enjoyment, this would defeat the overall purpose. So wine tasting and wine drinking serve different purposes. But whichever one we indulge in, the bottom line as usual with wine is that it is a wonderfully fulfilling endeavor.
G. W. Smikle is an avid researcher and writer. He researches and writes about a myriad of topics with one of his favorites being wine tasting. Visit him at http://topicaldigest.com/winetasting to see more resources related to wines and wine tasting in particular.
Article Source: G. W. Smikle == Wine Tasting Or Wine Drinking?
