Tasting Wine: The Look

The first step in the wine tasting process is to "see" the wine once it's poured into a clear wine glass. Start by angling the glass over a white background and inspecting the color and intensity of the wine.

Check first for brightness. How does it reflect light? These are the terms used for describing the scale of brightness:

Cloudy
Hazy
Dull
Bright
Brilliant

Next, take a look at the viscosity — or thickness — of the wine to deduce alcohol and sugar content. Finally, observe the wine's behavior when swirled. Are there legs or tears left on the glass? That's when there are small streams of liquid on the inside of the glass after a wine is swirled. If so, it can mean that wine has a higher alcohol level.

From here, pay attention to the color of the wine. White wine colors are usually described as straw, yellow, gold or brown. Below, we've broken them into three categories. Pink wines range from pink to salmon. We have one category, below. Red colors are often described as being purple, ruby or garnet. We have two red color categories below, and finish with a dessert grouping.

Clear to Light Green

Often, these are young wines, not aged in oak.

Sparkling
Muscadet
Riesling

Pale Yellows

These wines could be young, but could also have color from aging or sugars.

Sauvignon Blanc
Albariño
Verdejo
Pinot Gris
Pinot Blanc

Rich Golds

Whites with more sweetness or age are a deep, rich yellow.

Chardonnay
Viognier
Chenin Blanc
Riesling

Pink and Salmon

Rosé wines use the same grapes as red wines but are produced differently. The brief contact with red grape skin creates the pink and salmon colors. Lighter rosé can taste of grapefruit, while deeper color can be berry.

Rosé wines — Grenache, Syrah, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon
Rosé sparkling wines

Ruby to Garnet

Color variation can mean age, variety or both. Ruby wines are young or are from lighter colored grapes, like a Pinot Noir. Garnet red can be a "medium" red wine like Merlot, or a mature Tempranillo.

Pinot Noir
Grenache
Merlot
Tempranillo

Purple and Plum

These full wines offer maturity and intensity like a Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah.

Syrah
Cabernet Sauvignon
Malbec
Zinfandel

Tawny

Dessert, sweet and very old wines can have a tan or tawny hue.

Sherry
Tawny Port
Madeira

As wine gets older, its color changes—and reds and whites go in opposite directions.

With red wine, the bold purple color you see when it’s young slowly softens over time. The color compounds start sticking to tannins, clumping together, and eventually settling to the bottom of the bottle as sediment. As that color drops out, the wine shifts from purple to brick red, and eventually to brown.

White wine does the opposite. Instead of fading, it actually gets darker as it ages. Slow exposure to oxygen causes the color to deepen, moving from pale yellow to gold or amber.

Reds (fade toward brown): Think of the color slowly falling out of the wine. The particles get heavier and sink to the bottom.

Whites (darken toward gold): It’s like a sliced apple turning brown—gentle oxidation changes those light yellow tones into deeper, richer colors.