Drink What You Like: Swirling, what’s up with that?

“Seriously people,” you think to yourself when you’re wine tasting with your friends, “Just drink the damn wine!” After checking out the color, now they’re swirling their glasses around in the air and smelling for what seems like an eternity. Finally, one of them declares, “It smells like wine! Cheers!” What’s up with all this swirling anyway?

I sure feel a whole lot fancier when I’m at a winery or a restaurant and I give my wine glass a good swirl. It makes me look like I know what I’m doing, especially if I can do it in the air without spilling. And isn’t that a big part of enjoying wine in public looking like we know what the hell we’re doing with the glass of adult grape juice we’re holding? For sure it is! But swirling doesn’t just make you look sweet, it actually benefits the wine experience by “opening up” the wine.

Swirling wine around in your glass aerates it, it oxidizes it, it allows oxygen to come into contact with a larger surface area of the wine, literally letting air get to it. It’s like a mini, more involved version of decanting your wine. So why do we do it? As oxygen reacts with the wine, the liquid releases phenols, or the aromas, the bouquet, the nose, or whatever fancy wine word you want to use to describe the smells. Ok great, but why do we care? Because half of what we taste in our wines is actually received through our sense of smell.

Don’t believe me? Plug your nose and take a sip of wine. What do you taste? Not very much. You need your nose and your sense of smell to fully experience all of the flavors in your glass.

Now pour yourself a glass and take a whiff. Next, give it a good swirl (I recommend placing your wine glass on a table, and holding the base against the table as you move it in a circular motion. When you’ve mastered that, try doing it in the air.). Sniff it again. The smells, excuse me, I mean aromas will be much more pronounced after having more contact with the air. Didn’t really notice a difference? This time, use your other hand to cover the glass as you swirl. Keep your hand on it as you raise it to your nose. Lift your thumb and take a sniff — the gases will be much more concentrated since you trapped them in there with your hand.

So what’s the point? To aerate your wine and make it more enjoyable to drink and taste. The gases you release from swirling will rest in the bowl of the glass and be waiting for your nose when you take a sip. There is no need to swirl constantly.

Should you swirl every wine? Everything except bubbly. A little bit of sloshing about won’t really hurt the champers, but it could make it go flat. The carbonation in the bubbly will do the aerating for you, releasing the aromatics each time a tiny bubble bursts on the top.

So the next time you’re handed a glass of wine somewhere, give it a smell, then a swirl, and another smell, and notice how the aromas have changed before taking a sip. Or have a sip first. It’s your glass of wine, do what you like! Either way, swirling that red or white around in your glass will make the drinking part more enjoyable (so long as you don’t spill!).

Tell me, are you a swirler? Ever spilled? I sure have. Tell me in the comments below!

Cheers!