Seven Springs Winery: Wine Tasting at the Lake of the Ozarks

Showing posts with label Wine Tasting at the Lake of the Ozarks. Show all posts

Monday, November 14, 2016

5 Ways to Become a Wine Connoisseur - For Beginners

For beginners, the world of wine can be an intimidating place sometimes. It's filled with individuals who wear the right clothing, sip their wine the correct way, and then come back with a thousand flavors they found in that one swish. While it may seem complicated, there are a few things you can do to make the pomp and circumstance become a lot less difficult, and a whole lot more enjoyable for a new wine connoisseur. At Seven Springs Winery, we feature a variety of Missouri wines, and we would love to share them with you - you don't even have to hold your pinky out when you sip ;).

Here are a few things you can do while tasting a wine that actually do make a difference in the flavor, and can help you learn to pick flavors out. Of course, this may take some practice, so you'll have to grab a few friends and head down to the winery!

Look

This step should really take no more than five seconds, so you don't have to stare into your glass for too long. You're looking at the color and opacity of the wine, is it red or white? Does it have a dark appearance, or can you see through it? Finally, you'll observe the "legs" or viscosity of the wine. Many of the details are things you'll find quite obvious, maybe even on the bottle, but it can be fun to observe the glass before enjoying it.

Smell

When you're smelling a wine, you don't have to think of it in tiny terms. You don't have to be able to pick out every single little detail about the wine, but instead, take a long whiff and catch the bold broad flavors. Do you smell citrus or orchard fragrances? Breaking the scent down slowly from the larger aspects keeps you from getting frustrated. You can divide the fragrances into these categories:

Primary

Do you smell fruit, herb, or floral? These are the first elements you'll search for when smelling the best wine at the Lake of the Ozarks.

Secondary

These scents will come from the winemaking process, most likely the yeast, and will possibly remind you of cheese rind, nut husk (almond, peanut), or stale beer.

Tertiary

Finally, this comes from the aging process. Sometimes it's from the bottle, others from a barrel, and they will mimic these flavors: roasted nuts, baking spice, vanilla, autumn leaves, old tobacco, cured leather, or mushroom.

Taste

Now comes the fun part! This is how you can get the full taste of the wine, and even after you swallow you'll find that the flavors change because you're enjoying them with an entirely different area of your palette. Do you taste anything salty, sweet, sour, or bitter? These are things that you can only appreciate from your taste buds.

Can you "touch" the wine? This is caused by the alcohol content and the tannins. If you notice that wine is thicker than water, that is what causes this. Tannins are in all wines, and they are what give you the dry feeling that people mention about wine.

Enjoy!

Now that you've analyzed the wine, think about it! Did you enjoy the flavor combination? Was something off balance? Or was everything perfect and as it should be? Once you've found a wine that sits well with your palette, it's time to kick back and enjoy a bottle of it at our beautiful Lake of the Ozarks winery!

Spoil Your Senses at Seven Springs Winery

From flavor to beauty, you'll find many different aspects of our winery that appeal to all of your senses! Our selection of wine is varied and created to appeal to many different style and palettes, while our winery has beautiful views and great places to sit back and enjoy the freedom of a night spent enjoying wine. Come out and visit us sometime, we're certain you'll never want to leave!

Come for the wine...Stay for the atmosphere...Remember the view!

Seven Springs is the finest Winery at the Lake of the Ozarks with a full-service facility perfect for outdoor weddings, receptions, rehearsal dinners, corporate events and parties. Call us today to make reservations for your special event!

Seven Springs Winery

573.317.0100

846 Winery Hills Estates

Linn Creek, MO 65052

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Connect with us on LinkedIn

Follow us on Google+

Friday, April 29, 2016

How To Become a Wine Snob!

There's nothing we love more than a delicious glass of the best Missouri wine, but to truly savor a glass, sometimes you have to tap into your inner wine snob. From the way the wine looks, to the way it smells, and finally tastes, all of these details work together to create a wonderful sipping experience that can't be beat. At Seven Springs Winery, we have created a lovely venue where you can sip your wine slowly, peacefully, and snobbily. If you have yet to really learn how to be a wine snob, we have a few tips that are sure to help you!

LOOK

Come out and buy your favorite bottle of wine. Then you pour a glass and take a really good look at it. You can tilt the glass away from you to admire the color of the wine from the rim edges to the middle of the glass. If you can find a light colored background to hold it against, you'll look especially snobby. What color are you seeing? Look beyond red or white. Is the red shade a maroon, purple, ruby, garnet, red, brick or even brownish? Does your glass of white wine have a clear, pale yellow, straw-like, light green, golden, amber or brown appearance? These are observations that you can write down in your wine notebook so that you don't forget a single detail of your favorite Lake of the Ozarks wine. Next, you will inspect the opacity. Is the wine watery, or dark, translucent or opaque, dull or brilliant, cloudy or clear? Tilt your glass a bit, give it a little swirl, and look again. Do you see sediment, bits of cork or anything else? An older red wine will often have more orange tinges than a younger wine. An older white wine can be darker than younger varieties, even when comparing the same varietal different ages.

SMELL

Your sense of smell can be your most powerful sense when sipping a glass of wine. Get a good impression of the wine's aroma by swirling your glass for at least 10-12 seconds. This helps vaporize some of the wine's alcohol and release more of its natural aromas. After you've swirled it for a bit, take a quick whiff to get the first impression of this amazing wine. Now you can stick your nose down into the glass and take a deep inhale through your nose. What else do you catch in this whiff? Do you recognize scents of oak, berry, flowers, vanilla or citrus? The aroma of a wine can tell you so much about it, the quality and unique characteristics. If you want to really look like you have a nose for wine, you can swirl it again and let the aromas mix and mingle, finally sniff once more.

TASTE

Now for the best part, tasting your sparkling glass of wine. Start with a small sip and roll it around in your mouth. First, you'll want to notice the initial impression that the wine makes in your mouth. You'll want to notice if the alcohol content, tannin levels, acidity and residual sugars are well balanced, and that one isn't more prominent than the other. Next, you'll start to observe the wine's actual taste on your palate. Discern the flavor profile of the wine you're drinking. If it's red, you may notice fruit, berry, plum, prune or fig - maybe even some spice like pepper, clove, cinnamon, or a woody flavor like oak, cedar or some smokiness. Are you tasting a white wine? You may observe apple, pear, tropical or citrus fruits. You may even begin to pick up on hints of honey, butter, herbs or some earthiness. Finally, how long does the wine leave an impression on your taste buds? This is called The Finish. The wine culminates, and you will notice the aftertaste.

Wine Tasting at the Lake of the Ozarks

If you would like to find the perfect place to show off your wine tasting skills, we would love to give you some wine to try! When you visit our winery, you can try three FREE wines, and if you want to try all of them, for a small fee you can. Come out and visit our Lake of the Ozarks winery for an evening, afternoon, or even the whole day!

Come for the wine...Stay for the atmosphere...Remember the view!

Seven Springs Winery

573.317.0100

846 Winery Hills Estates

Linn Creek, MO 65052

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Connect with us on LinkedIn

Follow us on Google+

Friday, November 20, 2015

The 7 S's of Wine Tasting

A Wine tasting is your chance to test out many different wines, without having to purchase the bottle. At Seven Springs Winery, we have a tasting area set up where you can enjoy all of our different varieties and flavors. For some, a wine tasting is a cultivated art, full of rituals that must be accomplished before the glass even touches their lips, while for others it's merely a chance to see what flavors they will enjoy the most. No matter what your wine tasting style, here are seven things you can keep in mind while at your next wine tasting!

See

As a general rule, color saturations tends to give you a hint about flavor intensity. You can hold the glass up to a white background and examine the colors and clarity.

Swirl

Before you even get a chance to taste the wine, swirling it can help you decipher a few more details about this wine. Heavy wines are generally more intense on the nose and have a deeper color. Sweeter wines will be denser, and will leave viscous streaks down the sides of the glass as you swirl it.

Smell

The "nose" of the wine is a large way of determining anything about the wine. Since a wine's quality can be judged by bouquet, and taste, your nose, and mouth will be key players in a wine tasting. The bouquet of a wine can tell you many hints as to what you will find when you take the first sip. From the smell, you can also learn of any fault in the wine, such as cork taint, oxidation or yeast contamination.

Sip

Fill your mouth with the first flavors of this delicious glass that you're holding! Let the flavors coat your mouth, and enjoy every little hint and flavor combination that you experience. This is a key moment in wine tasting, and so very delicious!

Swish

By swishing the wine around your mouth, you allow the flavors to coat your taste buds. Just as your nose keys in on specific scents, by swirling the wine around your taste buds you are allowing each taste bud to get a mouthful of flavor. There are over 10,000 taste buds in your mouth, and they will help you define the sweet, salty, bitter or sour flavors that you try.

Swallow

Unless you're limiting your alcohol content (in which case you'll spit here), swallow your wine. Allow the last hints of flavor to drift past your tastebuds and make their way down.

Savor

Savor every last drop of this beautiful beverage. From the moment you looked at it to the second it left your mouth, it was an enjoyable experience, we're sure. The best part is that we have the best wine tasting at the Lake of the Ozarks, and you can try three of our wines for free! If you want to try ALL of our wines, you can try every single one of them for a small fee - and get a souvenir glass too!

Lake of the Ozarks Wine Tasting

Our beautiful facility is set up in such a way that you can enjoy your wine. From the tasting bar to the outdoor patio that overlooks the beautiful Ozark hills, you'll find beauty in every corner of our winery. We offer a delicious menu of custom prepared items that compliment the wines we have available, and we can also help with any wine pairing decisions! Come out and spend a relaxing afternoon at the best winery at the Lake of the Ozarks before your holiday schedule sets in.

Come for the wine...Stay for the atmosphere...Remember the view!

Seven Springs Winery

573.317.0100

846 Winery Hills Estates

Linn Creek, MO 65052

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Connect with us on LinkedIn

Follow us on Google+

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Common Wine Terms Explained

Have you ever visited the best winery at the Lake of the Ozarks, and heard people uttering a slew of words that all sounded like Greek? Well, it's not Greek, just fancy terms that winos use to describe their favorite beverage. Once you know these super simple terminologies, you can join in the conversation and sound like a wine connoisseur in no time!

Wine Terminology

Acidity

This term will describe how tart a wine is (or isn't). You may also hear other similar words such as crisp and bright or flabby.

Vintage

Just because a wine is described as vintage doesn't mean that it's old. It can also mean that the wine was made from grapes that were all (or mostly) harvested in a single year. A non-vintage wine is, obviously, grapes that were harvested over two or more years.

Body

This word describes how heavy or full wine feels in your mouth. The body of a wine can be light, medium or full-bodied.

Jammy

This term is used to describe red wines with a cooked fruit flavor

Tannins

There are bitter compounds in the skin and seeds of grapes that give red wine structure. (White wines have little to no tannins as they're typically not fermented on the skins.) You will typically desire some tannins in the flavor of the wine, but generally overly tannic wines can cause a drying sensation in your mouth.

Terrior

Terrior refers to how a growing region affects the wine's flavor. It's mostly used to describe wine, but it can also apply to cheese, coffee beans and other foods.

Best Missouri Wine

Now you can discuss wine with the best of them! Hopefully these terms can also help you appreciate wine as well. The flavors and textures of wine are intriguing and distinct. If you don't have a good feel for wine flavors and types - you're in luck! We offer wonderful wine tasting at the Lake of the Ozarks! For just a few dollars you can come in and try ALL of our wines, and get a souvenir glass! If you just want to try a few wines to wet your palate you can try three free. Come out for dinner and wine tasting this weekend - and try using some of your new vocabulary words!

Come for the wine...Stay for the atmosphere...Remember the view!

Seven Springs is the finest Winery at the Lake of the Ozarks with a full service facility perfect for outdoor weddings, receptions, rehearsal dinners, corporate events and parties. Call us today to make reservations for your special event!

Seven Springs Winery

573.317.0100

846 Winery Hills Estates

Linn Creek, MO 65052

Like us on Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Connect with us on LinkedIn

Follow us on Google+

Friday, September 25, 2015

Wine Tasting Social by the Camdenton Rotary

We are proud to host this exciting event with the Camdenton Rotary! There's nothing better than getting together with friends, enjoying glasses of wine and knowing that it is all for a good cause. Mark your calendars and make plans to come out to the best winery at the Lake of the Ozarks, and keep reading for all of the details.

Wine Tasting at the Lake of the Ozarks

On Wedensday, September 30th, you can come out to Seven Springs Winery, and enjoy this fun event from 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM. Tickets are $30 per person, and include the wine tasting, culinary treats customized by the chef as well as a souvenir wine glass. Space is limited, so you must get your tickets soon! You can purchase tickets from any Camdenton Rotary Member, or by calling Seven Springs Winery at 573-317-0100.

Entertainment at the Lake of the Ozarks

Shawn C. will be providing the music for a very entertaining evening. He is a local artist who is well known in the community for providing excellent music and a fun time. There will also be a 50/50 raffle and a Gift Basket Silent Auction. Proceeds from this even will help fund the Camdenton Rotary Youth Exchange Program.