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It is a common misconception amongst non wine connoisseurs that wine tasting amounts to merely sipping, swishing, and swallowing wine; this could not be further from the truth for the avid connoisseur. There is a definite art to wine tasting that takes years of studied practice to master.

Wine tasting notes can be utilized to distinguish a variety of fine wines and picking them is reliably depends on developing a trained palate which can only be attained over many years of practice. Wine that is properly housed and aged can be, to the connoisseur, an exquisite experience.

Wine tasting is totally dependent upon our sense of smell with more than 3/4 of the impact on our senses tied to the smell prior to even beginning to taste it. Most wine lovers will retell the experiencing of a fine wine and speak more of the wonderful aroma and then the taste. After the smell, it becomes the personal preference of the wine taster.

Napa Valley wine tasting is one of the places that was at the forefront of initiating proper wine tasting. Wine growers realized that with the all too familiar swishing came with a purpose. Its purpose is to circulate the taste of the wine by moving it from the front of the mouth to the rear in order to hit all of the taste buds on the tongue.

Taste buds are not necessarily the main factor, but they do identify food, beverages and as being sweet, salty or bitter. The swishing method, therefore, gives the senses a chance to extract the aromatic flavors in the wine testing process.

Understanding the fundamentals of swishing allows the connoisseur to move on to the three basic principles of the art of judging a fine wine - observing, smelling, and finally tasting.

Wine should ideally be served in a crystal clear glass so that the delicate color and hue are not distorted by the color of the glass. This allows the first step, observation, to be fully realized. With the sample, a wine connoisseur can take a leisurely approach to examining the wine. This is part of the process, taking a deliberately slow look to see if any imperfections in color and hue can be seen. For instance, White wines actually are not white. They range in color from a golden, pale brown to a shade of light green. Red wine is, by contrast, darker with a pink hue and can run the gamut between a dark pinkish color to a darker brown color.

The second step is observation. It is all about the nose and what the wine smells like. This is accomplished through two steps: taking a brief whiff of the wine to get a general idea and then taking a deep, extended inhalation in order to get the full aroma of the beverage.

Experts will generally pause at this point to take in and process what they have learned so far about the wine. They will want to reflect on the total experience with the wine.

After letting it come fully into their consciousness, a wine taster will then take a sip, swish it around to activate all of the taste buds to ascertain the wine and savor it fully prior to swallowing. This method allows all senses to be engaged in the process of taking in the wine, figuring the quality of it. This allows wine growers to figure out if their grapes, distillation process, and procedures used to store it in a wine cellar or storage unit was sufficient to produce a fine quality wine.

As it is with any skill, practice is part of the overall wine tasting methodology. While wine tasting is considered a skill that can be learned, wine experts will tell you that it is really more of an art.