For wine lovers, tasting wine isn’t just about sipping and swallowing; it’s an art form that engages all your senses. Whether you’re a novice wine enthusiast or a seasoned connoisseur, understanding the fundamentals of how to taste wine can enrich your appreciation of this ancient libation. From holding the glass to swirling the wine, there’s something deeply engaging about the experience. So, if you’re ready to elevate your wine-tasting experience to the level of a sommelier, we’ve put together a guide to help you get started.

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Understanding the Basics

Before diving into the intricacies of how to taste wine, it’s essential to grasp the basics. Wine tasting involves observing the wine’s appearance, assessing its aroma, savoring its flavor, and evaluating its finish. Each step provides valuable insights into the wine’s character and quality.

1. Visual Examination

Begin by pouring a small amount of wine into a clear glass. Take your glass by the stem and hold it against a white background. Observe the wine’s color, clarity and viscosity. White wines range from pale straw to golden yellow, while red wines can vary from light ruby to deep purple. Swirl the wine gently to release its aromas and observe any legs or tears that form on the glass.

2. Aromatic Assessment

Next, bring the wine in your glass to your nose and inhale deeply. Take note of the bouquet, the wine’s smell, which encompasses its various aromas. Swirl the wine again to intensify the aromas before smelling it once more. Pay attention to fruit, floral, herbal and spice notes, as well as any oak or earthy undertones. Wine aromoas can also provide clues about its grape varietal, age and winemaking techniques.

3. Palate Pleasure

Now it’s time to taste the wine. Take a small sip and let it coat your entire palate. Notice the wine’s texture, acidity, sweetness and tannins. Is it light-bodied or full-bodied? Crisp and refreshing or smooth and velvety? Identify the primary flavors and secondary characteristics, such as minerality or oak influence. Consider the wine’s balance, complexity and length on the palate

4. Evaluating the Finish

Finally, assess the wine’s finish, also known as its aftertaste. Paying attention to how long the flavor lingers on your palate, is it pleasant and lingering or abrupt and short-lived? A wine’s finish can reveal additional nuances and insights into its overall quality and aging potential.

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Developing Your Wine Palate

Becoming proficient at wine tasting takes time and practice. Key to the tasting experience is development of the pallette. For most people, chances are you’ve never really considered your palate. Our tongues hold up to 4,000 taste buds in five regions, but that is not the only place we taste. Here are some tips to help you hone your palate and refine your sensory skills:

Taste Widely: Explore a diverse range of wines from different regions, grape varieties, and styles. Experiment with both red and white wines to exoercise your tatse buds, as well as sparkling and dessert wines, to expand your tastepalate. Older wines often taste smoother and richer.

Take Notes: Keep a wine journal to record tasting notes of your experiences, including the wines you’ve tried, your observations and your preferences. Documenting your impressions can help you identify patterns and enhance your abilities of how to taste wine over time.

Seek Guidance: Attend wine tastings, classes, and workshops led by knowledgeable sommeliers and wine professionals. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and seek guidance from experts who can offer valuable insights and recommendations.

Trust Your Senses: While tasting wine like a sommelier involves analyzing its various components, it’s also important to trust your instincts and enjoy the experience.

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What to expect from some popular wines

Chardonnay is known for its versatility, offering a range of flavors from crisp green apple and citrus to creamy vanilla and buttery notes. Depending on the winemaking style, you may encounter oak influences such as toastiness and caramel. Coming from a cool climate wine region, expect a medium to full-bodied wine with moderate acidity.

A Cabernet Sauvignon typically features bold flavors of blackcurrant, black cherry and plum, complemented by hints of cedar and tobacco. It often has firm tannins and a full-bodied structure, with a long, satisfying finish. Look for wines with good acidity and aging potential.

Pinot Noir is renowned for its elegant and delicate profile, offering aromas of red fruits along with earthy and floral undertones. On the palate, expect a medium-bodied wine with silky tannins, vibrant acidity, and a smooth, lingering finish.

Last but not least, Sauvignon Blanc is known for its bright and zesty character, featuring aromas of citrus, green apple and tropical fruits like passion fruit and pineapple. It often exhibits herbal notes of grass, green bell pepper and gooseberry, with refreshing acidity and a crisp, clean finish.

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For Dubliner Trevor White, accomplished author and founder and curator of Dublin’s award-winning Little Museum, there’s no place quite like this effervescent and welcoming city. From the generosity of its people to the richness of its history, a visit to Dublin will leave a fond memory etched on your soul. And, just ahead of St Patrick’s Day, this is the perfect reason to throw a spotlight on the Emerald Isle.

Travel with us on our Ultimate Ireland small group journey and enjoy an exclusive VIP invitation to meet with Trevor in Dublin, for a personal after-hours tour of Little Museum, which he founded. Here you will find history, humor and a warm Irish welcome as you learn about the city, his work and what it means to be a Dubliner.

We had the privilege to speak with Trevor to ask him more about The Little Museum, his life as a Dubliner and to get some expert Dublin local tips.

The Little Museum

Photo credit: @littlemuseumdub on Instagram

Known as the “people’s museum of the capital”, the Little Museum is housed in an 18^th century townhouse in the beautiful setting of Dublin’s St Stephens Green. “The Little Museum is Dublin, bottled,” explains Trevor. “Our work is about building civic pride; documenting the past; making guests feel welcome; kindling memories, tears and laughter; and, ultimately, bringing people to a closer understanding of who they really are.“

When asked what makes the Little Museum so special, he tells us, “Ordinary citizens are responsible for the success of the institution, because our collection was created by public donation. Philanthropists, patrons and the Irish government have also been generous supporters. There are over 5,000 artefacts which have been donated by Dubliners at home and overseas, and together they allow us to tell the stories of the city.”

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Small things tell big stories

Photo credit: @littlemuseumdub on Instagram

Trevor tells us “In the Little Museum we use small things to tell big stories, such as the shutter with a bullethole from the Easter Rising, or the letter from 20-year-old James Joyce, asking Lady Gregory for money. Some of the highlights are more commonplace. My favorite artefact at the moment is a collection of tennis balls discarded by the dogs of Dún Laoghaire.” It was a rite of passage for many Dublin kids growing up to head to this coastal suburb for a “Teddy’s 99 ice cream (cone with a flake) and a walk on the pier.”

A charming item in the collection is a letter that John F Kennedy wrote in 1963, rather poignantly in the year that he was assassinated. Donated to the Little Museum by its owner, the letter was sent in reply to a little boy who wrote to ask the US President whether fairies only appear to Irish people. President Kennedy took the trouble to write quite a long response to this child to say that fairies appear to all those who believe in them.

“This artefact is a really sweet thing that speaks to political history and also has a very human flavor to it. It shows an intimate side of this very public figure’s personality.” Trevor explains.

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A Dublin welcome for everyone

Photo credit: @littlemuseumdub on Instagram

We asked Trevor how the idea for the Museum initially came about. “I spent my career writing about Dublin and have a deep love for the city,” he says. “I published a magazine called The Dubliner for many years and sold it in 2008. I spent some time traveling but needed a new challenge.”

“I was in a Dublin pub one night with a friend we fell into conversation with an Australian. We bought him a pint which is a very Irish thing to do, shared stories and told him the best things to do in Dublin. At the end of the evening my friend and I reflected that it was a really positive and rewarding experience.

“That night I bounded home to my wife, woke her up and enthusiastically told her that I was going to set up a greeter programme and open a museum of Dublin and we were going to welcome people from all over the world,” he recounts, “and she simply asked me if I had remembered to put the bins out!””

From that small seed the Little Museum was born. In its first year it had 25,000 visitors and in 2019 it had 120,000. The Museum has grown and has built an extraordinary collection, which Trevor tells us “Is a true reflection of the generosity of the people of this city. Dubliners have a big heart. There’s a huge warmth and generosity and hospitality in this city and we try to embody that in the museum.”

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For the love of entertainment

“It is such a privilege to be able to extend hospitality to Luxury Gold guests,” he continues, “to join over a glass of wine or bubbles and have the opportunity to tell people about our work. Guests look forward to a warm welcome when they come to Ireland. The museums home was designed in the 18th century to enable its owner to host and entertain guests. We are very proud to have brought our townhouse back to its original purpose. These magnificent drawing rooms are not designed for intimate conversations, they are designed for entertaining on a grand scale and as such it is such a pleasure to be able to share such a building with visitors from all over the world.”

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History, hospitality and humor

“There are three themes to our work in the museum” Trevor elaborates. “History, that is our subject, the history of Dublin and Dubliners. Hospitality, which is such a hugely important part of what we are doing on the museum and why it is such an honor to welcome guests from over the world. And thirdly, humor. When you ask what is it that makes the Irish Irish, conversation is a big part of our character and way of life. We try to embody that within the museum which is why all of our visitors are able capture the salty humor of Dublin itself,” he explains with a laugh.

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In the footsteps of literary greats

 

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Trevor is a former restaurant critic, publisher of The Dubliner, and author of five books, including The Dubliner Diaries. Of being a Dublin writer, he tells us “I am certainly conscious of the great literary tradition of the city.” Dublin boasts James Joyce, Oscar Wilde, Bram Stoker and W B Yeats amongst its esteemed stable of authors. “Anyone who writes anything in this town feels the weight of history on their shoulders,” Trevor admits. “In one sense it is a burden, but it is also a privilege to have grown up in a society where literature is taken seriously.”

“I am just finishing a concise history of Dublin to be published in the spring of 2023, hopefully to be ready in time to share with Luxury Gold guests,” he shares with us. “The whole purpose of this book is to provide a very lithe overview of the history of Dublin for visitors. So somebody coming to Dublin who knows nothing about it, a curious visitor, could sit down for a couple of hours and ingest the whole story.”

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Europe’s biggest village

Renowned for its vibrant, friendly atmosphere and rich history, Dublin is a city with much to offer every traveler. Described by Dubliner Trevor as “Europe’s biggest village,” we asked him to elaborate on this.  He tells us “What I am really talking about is the intimacy of this city.”

“Dublin is a small, easily navigable city. You can explore Dublin in a couple of hours, and that intimacy is part of its charm. The phrase Europe’s biggest village also references the gift for conversation that Irish people, an intimacy that visitors will experience first-hand.”

“When people come to Dublin, the first thing I tell them to do is go to a local pub. You will meet Irish people, and what will inevitably happen is that you will find yourself in conversation with a really good storyteller. That is one of the most distinctive and likable aspects of life in this city. And the city is full of gorgeous pubs.”

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A cultural haven

Photo credit: @nationalgalleryofireland on Instagram

As well as a visit to the pub, Trevor advises any visitor to Dublin to spend time at the city’s national cultural institutions, of which there are many. “The National Gallery of Ireland, recently refurbished, in the center of the city, offers treasures galore, with everyone from W.B. Yeats to Pablo Picasso represented in their extraordinary collection” he says. A visit to the National Library is also one of the memorable things to do in Dublin.”

“Dublin is big on theatre and is blessed with two world class institutions,” Trevor enthuses. “Our national theatre, the Abbey Theatre was set up by William B Yeats, the great Nobel prize winning poet and you are guaranteed to see a memorable production. And the Gate Theatre, where Orson Wells started his career as an actor before he went on to make Citizen Kane. It has a very storied history and offers world class theater for a fraction of the price of Broadway and the West End.”

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Delicious cuisine

Photo credit: @chapteronebymikaelviljanen on Instagram

As a former restaurant critic, we just had to ask Trevor for his best places to eat in Dublin and he suggested four great ways to taste the city:

Etto – an excellent Italian European restaurant which serves wonderful food with a great, fun atmosphere.

Glovers Alley – fine dining in a spectacular setting overlooking St Stephens Green.

Chapter One – Michelin starred dining offering real Irish hospitality and an extremely accomplished chef.

Roly’s Bistro – very buzzy with a delicious menu.

To experience this exclusive VIP after-hours meeting with Dubliner Trevor White at The Little Museum, book onto our Ultimate Ireland luxury guided tour.

Food is not just about great taste and nutrition. It can also tell a story of history and heritage in the most vibrant, flavorsome and captivating way. You’ll discover this and more when you dine at Salmon n’ Bannock, the only Indigenous-owned and operated restaurant in Vancouver.

Coming together at the gathering place created by proud Nuxalk Nation’s member Inez Cook, you’ll savor traditional and authentic Indigenous foods and flavors, passed down by elders. As the founder and owner of Salmon n’ Bannock, and the author of children’s book ” The Sixties Scoop”, Inez Cook is an incredible educator and an advocate for Indigenous people in Canada. This is her story…

Dine at Salmon n’ Bannock, a MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experience, on: Majesty of the Rockies

The story of Inez Cook

Inez Cook was born in Bella Coola B.C., a proud member of the Nuxalk Nation, one of the first Nations of Canada. When she was just one year old, she was forcibly taken from her mother by the Canadian Government and given to a white family to raise in Vancouver. 

Cook was one of an estimated 20,000 Indigenous children stolen under the Sixties Scoop, a government policy of cultural assimilation and systematic erasure beginning in the 1950s and lasting until the 1990s. There were also cases of child welfare services selling Indigenous children for tens of thousands of dollars to white adoptive parents across Canada. To this day, the true number of victims remains unknown as many forced adoption records were destroyed or disappeared. 

While Cook says she is one of the lucky ones who had a loving adoptive family, she said she always felt out of place and had no information about her biological family while growing up. She knew she was adopted but did not know she was born Nuxalk, or that she was stolen from her parents in Bella Coola. 

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The inspiration behind Salmon n’ Bannock

As Cook grew into adulthood, she felt a strong yearning to learn about her Indigenous heritage. Food became the major catalyst for her reconnection with the Nuxalk Nation. As she worked in different food industry jobs over the years, she realised there were no Indigenous restaurants in the whole of Vancouver, and dreamed of opening her own restaurant. 

One day, Cook drove past the sign of Indigenous-owned Kekuli Cafe in Kelowna that read “Don’t panic…We have bannock!” (traditional Indigenous bread). That sign inspired her to make the decision then and there to open a restaurant that would pay homage to her Indigneous heritage. 

Cook wanted to create a space that represents Indigenous foods, traditions, and culture with pride. She wanted to build a gathering place where people could come together to share food and stories. In 2010, Cook achieved this dream, opening her restaurant, Salmon n’ Bannock. 

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The Salmon n’ Bannock menu

After months of research and learning about First Nation cooking techniques and native ingredients, Cook built a remarkable menu. She wanted the restaurant to showcase traditional methods like smoking and preserving food. She also wanted to use Indigenous foods and dishes that First Nations people traditionally hunted and harvested. Her menu includes foods like bannock, bison, wild sockeye salmon, game meats, maple syrup, wild boar, and Ojibway wild rice. Cook would use seasonal and foraged ingredients and even bought wild huckleberries from a First Nations elder who carried a gun in case he needed to scare off bears while foraging.

Cook says she learns more about Indigenous dishes and foods every day at Salmon n’ Bannock and that the restaurant does not represent any one First Nation. Instead, it’s a thoughtful and authentic menu of Indigenous food. It’s also a celebration of Cook’s heritage and identity – a proud Native woman. 

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Indigenous dishes with modern influences

Cook then took the traditional ingredients and dreamed up modern twists. Take pemmican, an important Indigenous food, traditionally made with dried meat and berries. Cook has revived this dish by making a delicious, rich Pemmican Mouse. It’s made with smoked and dried bison mixed with sage-blueberries and cream cheese, and paired with their perfectly toasted bannock.

She also transformed wild sockeye salmon into the Urban Salmon Burger, served with signature bannock, lemon aioli and house made pickles. Salmon is spiritually significant for many Indigenous people as it represents the Circle of Life in the way it is born in freshwater, lives in saltwater, then returns to freshwater to spawn and die. Cook marinades and smokes the fish using dry white sage, a sacred herb used in smudging practices in important ceremonies. Freshly baked bannock bread is then symbolically split in two to form the bun for the salmon. The breaking of the bannock shows that everyone is welcome at the table here. 

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The beauty of Bannock

Bannock, which plays a starring role in this aptly-named restaurant, is a traditional Indigenous food with a complex history entwined with colonialism. Scottish fur traders first introduced a version of bannock to Canada, however, Indigenous peoples adopted bannock and it’s made differently all over the country. Bannock plays an important role in Indigenous cultures and is an essential dish at potlatches, a traditional ceremony and feast for First Nations communities. 

In British Columbia, bannock is known as the “Aboriginal staff of life” and cultural knowledge and stories are often shared over a basket of bannock. It’s a cultural tradition and a staple comfort food made in many different ways. At its most simple, it’s a mix of flour, water, baking powder and salt, and it can be fried, baked, or cooked on an open fire. It can be pillowy soft and deliciously crumbly. 

Cook has her own fond memories of bannock. She used to make it at summer camp as a child, cooked over the fire and drizzled in corn syrup. Today, Cook’s signature bannock embraces the diversity of this dish. She serves it scone-like with butter and berry jam and as crackers with salmon mousse. She whips it into a bun for a wild samon burger, and as bread topped with mushrooms, melted brie, sage-blueberries and bison gravy. Cook says that Indigenous people all made some kind of bread, pre-colonialism, and today she makes bannock to reclaim this Indigenous dish. She wants her food to be seen as a proud declaration of Indigenous food and culture.  

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How the restaurant helped Inez Cook find her family

First Nations totem poles stand tall in Vancouver’s Stanley Park

As more First Nations members began visiting the restaurant to try out the food for themselves, Cook was questioned by Nuxalk peoples on her authenticity. After sharing her biological mother’s name – Miriam – with a Nuxalk woman, Cook’s uncle soon showed up. He told Cook he’d been looking for her for a while and had promised her mother Miriam he would find her one day. 

Sadly, Cook’s mother had passed away before she could meet her, however, Cook’s uncle gave her restaurant a Nuxalk blessing and invited her to her community for an emotional three-day potlatch. There she reunited with her Nuxalk Nation and was able to meet hundreds of relatives. She also received her regalia and traditional Nuxalk name, Snitsmana, which means “protector of the sacred dance, and lively”. Through this experience, Cook was able to learn about the culture and traditions of the Nuxalk. She felt she could embrace her Indigenous roots, all while gaining a sense of belonging and new understanding about herself. 

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Educating through food

The Inukshuk statue in Vancouver’s English Bay. This symbol was used by the Inuit people to mark the location of essential resources, such as hunting grounds.

Over the last 12 years, Salmon n’ Bannock has remained Vancouver’s only Indigenous-owned and operated restaurant. It’s one of the best establishment’s on the city’s dining scene, and exclusively hires Indigenous and First Nations staff. Her team includes members of Nuxalk, Carrier Sekani, Cree, Haida, Long Plain, Muskoday, Ojibway, Pinaymootang, Squamish, Tsimshian, and  Quw’utsun Nations and Indigenous groups, along with a Maori employee from New Zealand.

Cook also uses the restaurant to educate and advocate through food. In 2018, she and Jason Eaglespeaker published “The Sixties Scoop”, a children’s book that shares the truth about Canada’s genocide. Cook says she never learned about this at school when she was growing up and believes the best way to educate future generations is by teaching children. 

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Indigenous food sovereignty

Cook says we still have a long way to go in fighting misinformation and achieving food sovereignty for Indigenous communities. She says that some foods, like wild game, still have to go through several strict regulations before they can be served. With over 600 Indigenous nations across Canada, she says it’s absurd that Indigenous people are not allowed to serve their traditional food. Cook says there needs to be commercially approved kitchens in all Indigenous communities so health inspectors will approve them of serving these foods. 

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Indigenous land acknowledgements

Cook also campaigns for airlines to include a proper land acknowledgement in their pre-touchdown announcements when arriving into Canada. She also wants the “Welcome to Vancouver” sign to include the recognition that the city is set on the unceded territory of the Coast Salish Peoples. They were the original inhabitants for 9,000 years before the Europeans landed here, and they never ceded or signed away their land. Cook says that land acknowledgement is a small but significant step towards showing respect for Indigenous people and righting past wrongs. 

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Breaking bannock – the spirit of Salmon n’ Bannock

Food is something that has always brought people from all cultures together. This is particularly true for Cook, for whom food has led her to reconnect with her family and culture. She dreams of the day that Indigenous restaurants are no longer a rarity in Canada and wants Indigenous food to become part of the common dialogue – as regular as going for burgers, sushi or tacos. She envisions her restaurant being a place where people can learn about Canada’s First Nations people, by sharing stories and traditions through food. 

So when people come to her restaurant to break bannock, they’re not only tucking into a beautiful meal – they’re helping to preserve and celebrate Indigenous cultures.

Would you like to experience Salmon n’ Bannock? You’ll visit this fantastic restaurant on our Majesty of the Rockies luxury guided tour on a MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® Experience, where you’ll break bannock over a delicious Celebration Lunch made with traditional ingredients and flavours.