1. Sampling wine in order to appraise its quality. 2. An organized sampling of a wine or wines for the purpose of appraisal. Winetastings can be structured in different ways and are the basic means by which wines are judged. Wines are carefully assessed by colour, clarity and bouquet as well as flavour. When many wines are to be sampled, tasters will frequently spit out the wine after tasting rather than swallow it in order to keep their senses sharp. See also blind tasting, horizontal tasting and vertical tasting.