Walking while chewing gum is, for many, the ultimate uncomplicated task. Some are even capable of blowing bubbles with their gum as they stroll. There are, however, organizations, groups, even governments that have made it their mission to complicate the most mundane activities. Take, for example, the government of Singapore, which has criminalized walking and chewing gum. Well, at least the gum chewing part.

Here in the US, we are more fortunate. Gum is legal. We do however, have a group of so-called complicators – they go by names like “professional wine taster” and “sommelier” – who have taken the ordinary act of drinking wine and made it overly complex.

The correct way to taste wine is a subject upon which many imbibers lock horns. But it’s not all anarchy – adherents to certain wine tasting practices fall neatly into four groups. Group One, we’ll call the Hyper-Sensualists. For them, the tasting game is a sensual challenge. Using all their might they attempt to detect aromas and “tissues,” “threads,” or “strains” of flavor in wine. Hyper-Sensualists tend to rely on a battery of descriptors, ranging from vague terms like “smooth” or “yummy” to arcane phrases such as “I get honey on wet granite with hints of Brando and Bronson.”

Group Two are the Empiricists. These pseudo-scientifically minded tasters search with their tongues for the exclusively technical elements of a wine that can be identified as animal, vegetal or mineral. Group Three has the smallest population, and its members usually go by the title of professional wine taster. Some members of this group determine a wine’s quality by scoring it – a somewhat ridiculous endeavor in a world where there are art connoisseurs who view Thomas Kinkade, “Painter of Light”™ as better than Picasso or Matisse.

The largest wedge of the wine tasting pie is the Silent Majority, whose tasting method was born from their having watched someone who knew what they were doing – or so they thought. These are the poor souls who simply ape what they saw another do, without ever bothering to understand why.

If one is willing to admit they are a member of the Silent Majority, and wishes to become the founder of a fifth group we’ll call The Rationalists, the path can be fraught with devilish and misguided individuals.

For example, the Neo-Anti-Swirlers (they do exist) will say that spinning the wine in the glass immediately after it is poured is tantamount to placing mints in your nose before sniffing a rose. Another type of über wine geek was recently overheard explaining that it is best to swirl, then let the glass sit unagitated for several minutes before taking the first sniff. The gentleman’s counterpart, and also a wine geek, was heard to rebut that it is best to tilt the glass so that the unagitated wine is almost directly under one’s nose, then sniff carefully – it would be quite embarrassing to drown in less than an inch of wine.

If these faux know-it-alls weren’t troubling enough, there are conflicting points of view about what a drinker should be looking for when they are tasting. The neophyte’s best hope of escaping the Silent Majority is to go with credible experts, not the guy at the wine bar who can name the score of every wine on any given list.

In an effort to separate the sound methods from the silly, three real, live wine experts were asked: How does one taste wine? “First, swirl, making sure to really coat the surface area of the glass,” explains Joe Spellman, head of the Court of the Master Sommelier. “This energizes the wine, releases vapors and esters. A good swirl makes for more of a ‘push’ of aroma.” When on the job, the Court relies on a method they call Deductive Tasting. It is used mostly for blind tastings, and is heavy with detailed questions the taster must ask themselves. When sipping for pleasure, Spellman recommends swirling, sniffing then taking small sips, coating the palette and tongue. “A person should be careful not to oversmell their wine,” Spellman says. “Repeated inhalations can desensitize olfactory nerves.” He adds, “After the first sip, one needn’t be too quick about making a judgment. Sometimes waiting maybe 10 seconds or so allows the wine to make an impression.”

Ben Aviram, a sommelier at Napa Valley bistro Bouchon, is a practitioner of the AAFEW (Alcohol, Acid, Fruit, Earth, Wood) tasting method. “We use the AAFEW because it is a simplified version of the Court of the Master Sommelier, and because it’s useful for people, no matter how wine savvy they are, to analyze wines.” Using this approach, the drinker swirls, sniffs and sips their way through the categories to determine the various levels of the wine’s component parts. With practice, a wine lover can sometimes pinpoint a wine’s place of origin, its vintage, its varietal and, if one is really good, the specific valley in which the fruit was grown. Aviram is quick to add that some habits of wine drinkers are of no usefulness at all. Foremost on this list is: “Don’t sniff the cork; this proves nothing about the wine.”

Taking this investigation global, London-based wine writer Michael Broadbent was consulted. Broadbent is one of the world’s foremost experts on just about everything, and has been tasting the world’s wines for over 40 years. He, too, advocates swirling, sniffing and tasting. “The swirl rouses the wine, aerates and maximizes the surface area,” Broadbent confirms. But, he cautions, “Much has been said about the first sniff. It is important up to a point, but I always stress that unless the taster concentrates undistractedly on that first elusive sniff, the significance is missed.”

Whether one embraces the swirl, sniff, and sip method as the one they rely on to gain sensual enjoyment of wine is purely a matter of choice. If there is one rule that ought to followed to the letter, it is: Always spit out your gum before tasting.