Development in the mouth, structure, balance… What is the tasting phase of Pazo Baión like?

Wine tasting is a ritual. A dance that we dance with our glass. A ceremony is composed of three main phases: the visual, the olfactory, and the gustatory. All of them provide us with information about the wine we are tasting. From the variety of grapes with which it is made to its aging process. We have already talked about the colors and aromas of Pazo Baión. Today we are going to recreate ourselves in its long development in the mouth and other characteristics that we can enjoy when this work of goldsmithing reaches our palate.

The layman associates the fact of «drinking a wine» with ingesting it, dismissing the relevance of the visual phase and, above all, the olfactory phase of wine tasting. The aromas of the wine are crucial to enjoying it. For example, Pazo Baión has aromas of apple, white flowers, and citrus. This does not mean that it tastes like these fruits and flowers, but that its aromas lead us to these products of Mother Nature.

Moreover, through the retronasal route, the olfactory and taste phases complement each other, combining the information from the nostrils with that of the taste buds to compose an accurate picture of the wine we are enjoying.

Therefore, today we are going to talk about the tasting phase of wine and highlight the long development in the mouth of Pazo Baión.

The taste phase of wine tasting: A finish in style

Once the wine has been layered and its different aromas have been captured, the crowning moment arrives: tasting it. Bring the glass to our lips and let the wine finish intoxicating our senses. This is what is called, in wine tasting, the tasting phase of the wine. And the only secret to successfully executing it is to taste, taste and taste.

This phase is composed, in turn, of three sub-phases: the attack, the evolution, and the finish in the mouth.

1. The attack

As its name suggests, this phase is the first step. The first contact between the wine and the taste buds is at the beginning of the tongue. A contact in which these papillae gather information during the first seconds in which wine reaches our palate.

This first sensation does not determine what the wine is like in the mouth, but like all first impressions in this life, it is important. If the sensations are not positive, even if the evolution of the wine is good, the experience of tasting it will be detrimental.

2. The evolution

The next step is the evolutionary phase, which occurs in the following seconds when the wine floods our mouths. In this step, another sense plays a fundamental role, in addition to taste: touch. Since we can enjoy the textures of the wine or, in other words, determine whether we are in front of a silky, oily, smooth wine…

In this phase, we also obtain decisive information to analyze the structure of the wine, its balance, and the level of acidity it has. As far as our own body is concerned, the protagonist is the middle part of our tongue.

3. The memory

Once the wine is in our mouth for a few seconds, we proceed to swallow it and let it flow through our organism. After this, we find what in the world of wine is known as the end of the mouth. That is the flavors that survive inside us after ingesting the wine.

As we mentioned before, aromas play a key role here once again, since at this stage new aromas are detected through the retronasal passage. This completes the aromatic composition of the wine and, above all, our enjoyment of it.

This phase, also called the aftertaste, shows us how the wine develops in the mouth. For example, Pazo Baión stands out for its long development in the mouth. It evolves on the palate and persists long after drinking it.

This long development in the mouth attests to the quality of the wine being consumed. As with people… if their memory is brief, if after meeting them we have already forgotten about them, it means that they have not penetrated us and, therefore, they do not transcend within us.

Pazo Baión: long development on the palate and aromatic persistence

The tasting of Pazo Baión evidences two complementary facts. This wine, recognized as the Best Young White Wine of Spain by the Gourmet Guide, is a wine that has all the most representative features of the Albariño grape variety. But it also incorporates new and refreshing notes, such as its citrus aromas.

Thus, when we take Pazo Baión to the palate, its mineral character is striking, the result of the soil a unique property. But also the intensity and persistence of its aromas.

But without a doubt, what all the experts highlight is its long development in the mouth. As José Hidalgo, the winemaker behind this masterpiece points out, “good lees work gives it body and, above all, length in the mouth”.

This long development on the palate means that Pazo Baión takes hold of the senses not only while it is being tasted, but its seductive effects persist after it has been swallowed.

Likewise, when we take a glass of Pazo Baión to our mouth, we can note four other key characteristics of this single-estate albariño:

• It has a good structure.
• Its marked power and sensational balance are very interesting.
• Precisely, its balanced acidity contributes to giving it freshness and, also, to that long development in the mouth that is its hallmark.

Once the three phases of the tasting have been completed, it is clear to the eye, smell, touch, and taste that Pazo Baión is a single-estate Albariño with a very marked personality, which contains within its great varietal characteristics, but which is also enriched by the particularities of the soil and the microclimate of our estate and, above all, by the laborious and detailed work carried out by the winemakers and oenologists of Pazo Baión.

A wine that stands out for its intense varietal perfume, structure, power, balance, and, yes, its long development in the mouth. A delight that pairs with the best seafood and makes the memories associated with it persist in our memory.