Identifying Sweetness in Wine Tasting

"When you first approach a wine for tasting, and you're actually at the point where you're ready to taste it by putting it in your mouth, I always tell people the best thing to do is direct your attention to the tip of your tongue. Make sure your wine is in contact with the tip of your tongue, and see if you can ascertain any sweetness in the wine; it kind of looks like this. All wine will or will not have some level of sweetness or not and if it's sweet, we can refer to it as sweet, very sweet, semi-sweet, off dry. If there's no residual sugar, or sugar left over after fermentation, we call it dry. Many table wines are dry, but a lot of times people have a hard time telling the difference between a fruity flavor and a sweet taste. Here's how you do it; sweet is a taste; you can perceive it using just your tongue, so if you put the wine in your mouth, draw your attention to the tip of your tongue, make sure your tongue is tasting the wine. Right then and there at that moment in time, ask yourself if the wine tastes sweet? If the answer is no, it's a dry wine, and you can move on. If the answer is yes however, what you need to do is keep the wine in your mouth; on the tip of your tongue. Very quickly plug your nose; like this. While your nose is plugged, draw your attention to your tongue. What you're doing is cutting off the flow of aroma, and allowing you to only perceive taste. If it still tastes sweet then the wine is sweet; if not, it's dry. Don't worry if this is a little difficult for you. The difference between a sweet taste, and a fruity or otherwise spicy flavor, is one of the most difficult things for many people to get in wine tasting, so just keep practicing."