The fourth step is to *Smell
You can call it the nose or the bouquet or whatever you like. Very few drinkers actually smell their wine and if you haven’t really done this before, try it. It will give you a different window on the wine.

In a good Pinot you need to look for berries and spices but I’m not going to go into this aspect of things too deeply. Different palates find different things and you don’t want to get too detailed or too dogmatic here. Suffice to say that Pinot should have good fruit, good acidity to give it zing and zip, and good “structure”.

There should be good tannins and the wine should be “long in the mouth”, if that means anything to you. If these terms don’t mean anything to you, don’t worry, just look for the fruit (berries or whatever), and perhaps something a bit mustier – the French call it “forest floor”. This can be a hint of mushrooms or compost or that kind of thing. Spices are sometimes clear – pepper, cinnamon and so on – but don’t stress if you don’t find any of these.