Every fringe, The Scotsman runs a daily column on 'How to...'
In 2004 they asked us to share our expertise!

How to... be a Wine Taster

We went on a ten-week wine tasting course when we started work on The Joy of Wine. What surprised us was that in the first five minutes of the first session they taught us how to taste wine properly; the rest of the course consisted of the upwardly-mobile accountants around us showing off loudly about where they'd been on holiday, and what a WONDERFULLY fresh little zinfandel they'd had from such an UNSPOILT independent Tuscan vinyard.

To save you from nine-and-a-half weeks of holiday anecdotes, here's all you really need to know about wine tasting:

1. There are no right or wrong answers. If you thing the wine tastes of peaches and someone else says it's apricots, it's all cool. The real point of wine tasting is to see if you like a particular wine, identify why, and then remember what you like next time you're in Tesco's.

2. Oxygenate your wine. Many of the flavours in fine wine are only activated by contact with the air. Decant your wine vigorously, pour it from a great height, swirl it in the glass. Don't just sip your wine, slurp it, like a Japanese soup. If you do nothing else, oxygenation is the key to waking up your wine. Unless you've paid less than £3 for it, in which case it's probably best to leave it sleeping.

3. Your sense of smell is much more powerful than your sense of taste. Sniff the wine throughout for maximum pleasure.

4. Spitting is only recommended if you have to taste a hundred different wines in one sitting. Or if you're drinking Buckfast.

If you'd like a chance to try this out on a complimentary glass of wine while laughing at an over-eager vicar and his halfwit friend, come on down to the Pleasance Courtyard and let us pop your cork. Scotsman, 16th August 2004