Unusual Wines Tasting Box
The Wines in the Box
From fortification to freezing, with a trip beneath the sea along the way, we’ve brought together four of the most extraordinary winemaking methods in this box.
With this remarkable selection, you’ll discover some of the most surprising things wine has to offer...
The Tasting
Pro tip: There’s an ideal order for tasting wines. Start with sparkling wines, followed by dry whites and rosés, then reds from least to most tannic, and finish with sweet and dessert wines. The idea is to build up in intensity to excite your taste buds without overwhelming them.
The wines are presented in the ideal tasting order.
Preparing for the tasting
• Our tasting boxes are designed to give you the best possible tasting experience. It’s up to you whether you taste all the wines in the box at once or spread the experience over several evenings!
• Our vials contain enough wine for two people to taste each selection.
• Bear in mind that not all the wines should be served at the same temperature. We recommend checking the ideal serving temperature in the leaflet included in the box or in the wine descriptions below.
The right glass makes a big difference to how you perceive a wine. Its shape affects factors such as how aromas are concentrated towards your nose at the top of the glass, how much air reaches the wine depending on its exposed surface area, and even the wine’s temperature, depending on how much of it touches the glass.
To start with, we recommend using "INAO" glasses, whose shape was scientifically designed to provide an optimal tasting experience for all types of wine.
Alternatively, any tulip-shaped glass will do nicely, allowing aromas to develop in the glass and concentrate towards your nose.
A packet of plain, unsalted crackers will do nicely to cleanse your palate between wines. The flour they contain helps absorb the taste of the previous wine, refreshing your palate without leaving a new flavour in your mouth.
Alternatively, any neutral-tasting food will work just as well: bread, pretzels and, above all, water! This helps prevent "palate fatigue", which occurs when too many flavours build up at once.
The stages of wine tasting
• Clues to the wine’s age
Tilt the glass against a white background to distinguish a young wine from an older one.
• Clues to the alcohol, glycerol and residual sugar content
Keep the glass slightly tilted and swirl it gently to watch droplets form and run down the inside. These are the wine’s tears, or legs.
• The first nose
Tilt the glass to 45° and bring it close to your nose without swirling it, to smell the initial aromas.
This stage primarily reveals any wine faults: cork taint, a vinegary smell, oxidation or reduction.
• The second nose
Swirl the wine in the glass for a few seconds. This aerates the wine and releases its secondary aromas.
Other, less volatile aromas should emerge at this stage.
Take a small sip of wine and move it around your mouth with your tongue, letting it reach every part of your mouth so you can pick up all its flavours.
The ultimate technique is retronasal olfaction: drawing a little air in through your mouth while holding the wine there, then breathing out through your nose.
You can then swallow the wine or spit it into a small container provided for the purpose.
The Connoisseurs’ Corner
Did you know that in his masterpiece ‘Around the Moon’, writer Jules Verne sent his three protagonists on a mission to explore the Moon?
The characters celebrate the mission by raising a glass of Nuits-Saint-Georges on the Moon. In tribute to the novelist, Neil Armstrong left a wine label on the Moon during his exploration. It’s still there today!