Food & DrinkExplain Like I'm 5Beginner
How to Taste Wine, a free food & drink course on Tomo

How to Taste Wine

Learn to taste wine with confidence without the pretension. Master the basic sensory routine, decode what you feel on your palate, and talk about what you enjoy.

Like Duolingo, but for How to Taste Wine. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.

A short one: 12 levels across 2 sections, about 24 minutes end to end, roughly 5 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Decoding What's in Your Glass and Expressing and Choosing Wine. It starts from scratch.

12 bite-size levelsAbout 5 minutes each

Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android

Willa the Walrus, the guide who teaches the How to Taste Wine course
How to Taste Wine
with Willa the Walrus
12
Levels
2
Sections
5
Min/day
What you'll learn

Key ideas in How to Taste Wine

  • Tilting thins the wine toward the rim, revealing edge color shifts that show age
  • A neutral white background prevents ambient room colors from distorting the wine's hue
  • Looking straight down only shows total darkness, obscuring color depth
  • Swirling spreads a thin film of wine across the inside of the bowl
  • Greater surface area speeds up alcohol evaporation, carrying aromatic compounds to your nose
  • Short, gentle sniffs bring aromas to the upper nasal cavity without numbing receptors
  • Keeping lips slightly parted prevents breathing solely through the nose, softening alcohol sting
  • Inhaling deeply and repeatedly exhausts olfactory senses within seconds
  • A wine's body feels like milk weight (light like skim vs heavy like cream) across the tongue
  • Tannins create a dry, grippy sensation on the gums and cheeks
  • Alcohol creates a gentle warming sensation in the back of the mouth and throat
  • The finish is measured by how many seconds pleasing flavors stay noticeable after swallowing
  • High-quality wines leave complex, persistent flavors rather than dropping flat instantly
  • A long finish is one of the most reliable cues separating exceptional wine from ordinary wine
  • Acidity triggers saliva production and watering along the sides of the tongue
  • Acidity gives wine a crisp, lively, and refreshing character rather than a bitter or drying feel
Why not just Google it

You've tried the other tabs

Wikipedia

Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.

YouTube

You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.

ChatGPT

One answer, then back to scrolling.

Online courses

Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.

Tomo gives How to Taste Wine the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.

Try a question

Here's what playing it feels like

A real question from this course. Take your best guess.

Looking and Swirling Your Wine

When you tip your wine glass sideways, what does it show along the edge?

Get it right to open this lesson and 11 more in the app.

Course map

Where How to Taste Wine takes you

  1. 1

    Decoding What's in Your Glass

    • The Four-Step Tasting Routine
    • Feeling Structure: Acid, Tannin, and Body
  2. 2

    Expressing and Choosing Wine

    • Identifying Aromas and Flaws
    • Ordering and Pairing with Confidence

2 sections · 4 units · 12 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.

New

Tomo is in ChatGPT

Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.

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How it's taught

You pick the voice

This course
Explain Like I'm 5

How to Taste Wine is taught in the Explain Like I'm 5 style: no big words. promise.. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.

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Download Tomo, search How to Taste Wine, and play your first lesson in under a minute.