Swish and swallow

Looking to get more out of your wine? Then try holding the wine in your mouth for 30-60 seconds, swishing it around like mouthwash, before finally drinking it or spitting it out. I think I blogged about this over a year ago, but it's worth an all new post.

Background: I was at the Rosenblum open house where they serve 40+ high alcohol wines and I had to drive, so I was spitting the whole tasting. That meant, a decent mouthful which I would taste for 20-120 seconds and then spit. And I found I liked the wines a good bit.

Many wines revealed flavors and a richness in texture after 20 seconds, that you don't get from normal drinking. At first spitting seems like it ruins most of the enjoyment of having wine, but if you're actually into tasting the wine, especially for evaluative purposes as in what to buy, then spitting works well. I've also found ports and sweet dessert wines gains significant body after 30 seconds in the mouth. And I found swishing and spitting to be strangely satisfying in its own way.

You still get some alcohol by spitting. I took decent mouthfuls of each and a bit is swallowed. Some critics say it's a 1/20 to 1/30 dilution, namely tasting 20 wines is like drinking one glass, but I think it's more like 1/10 to 1/15. Plus on three of the wines, I liked them enough to outright swallow.

As I enter this post, I'm having a big oaky Chardonnay (Kali Hart 2005) and doing sniff, swish and swallow. It's pretty enjoyable and sure beats the sniff, swish and spit routine.