The clarity of a wine refers to its ability to reflect or absorb light.  Observing the clarity of white wines, and sparkling wines too, is pretty straight-forward.  The wine should be shiny and you should be able to see through it.  It’s a bit more challenging with red wines, though, simply because of the darker color of the liquid.  Tip the glass away from you and against a white background.  You should be able to see a shine within the red hue.  Wines that have gone bad may have a lack of clarity, such as cloudiness or murkiness observed in the wine.

Next, check a wine’s color by contrasting the liquid against the white background.  Tilt your glass a bit and note its intensity.  Light-bodied red wines such as Pinot Noir and Gamay, for example, range in color from lighter, brighter magenta to garnet, while their full-bodied counterparts, such as Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon will be a deeper burgundy color and more opaque in appearance.  White wines tend to deepen in color as they age.  A young Pinot Grigio may have an almost green hue to it, while a rich golden color lends itself to an oak-aged Chardonnay.   If you notice a bluish rim on a wine, don’t be alarmed.  This may occur in a lower-acidity wine such as Syrah.

The consistency of a wine can also be used to assess it.  Examine the thickness of the wine by swirling the liquid around in the glass and observe the “legs;” the size and the width of the legs, paired with the speed at which they move down the sides of the glass, can tell a couple of things about the wine.  While some believe that more legs equal a better wine, in reality it is rather a direct correlation to the alcohol and sugar content of the wine you are observing.  Thin, quickly-moving legs point to a wine that is lighter in body, lower in alcohol, and without residual sugar, whereas thicker, slow legs are a determinant of a fuller-bodied wine that has a higher alcohol content.

So always, when you are looking for a spectacular wine to enjoy, take the time to really look at what you have in front of you.  Although it seems like a lot, the process really should only take about 30 seconds.  And you will not be sorry that you took that half a minute to evaluate the look of the wine.  It can tell you a lot about the wine before you move on to the next important aspect of wine tasting:  the smell.

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