How to taste
Do you want to hone your palate? Victoria Moore asked some of the world’s greatest wine experts to share their tasting techniques
Victoria Moore takes you through how to hone your tasting technique, with tips and guidance from top experts across the industry
Tasting is both simple and highly complex. A child can do it (I’m not talking about wine, obviously), and yet it’s a vast subject whose intricacies could fill many books. So how do you go about getting the most out of your wine glass? I’ve talked to some of the world’s best tasters to discuss the tactics that they use when assessing, or just enjoying, a wine.
Professional athletes are keenly aware of what affects their form. Wine tasters – especially those on the buying and writing side of the fence – are more likely to promote the myth of the infallible palate (theirs, naturally). Happily, that conversation is now changing as we learn more about our olfactory and taste systems.
‘The wine taster’s instrument is not only the nose but the entire body,’ says Ann-Sophie Barwich, a cognitive scientist, empirical philosopher and the author of Smellosophy: What the Nose Tells the Mind (£28.95, Harvard University Press, 2020). ‘The expert nose measures the volatiles in the wine, while their sensation is an expression also of the consitution of the taster. Mood, expectations, fatigue... all of that mediates the qualitative experience of a wine.’
What can we do about our physical and emotional inconsistencies and the impact they have on the tasting experience? Be aware of it, for a start. Work to minimise variations rather than ignoring them, and exploit the times when we’re on peak form.
Most wine tasters say they perform best in the morning. Jacques Polge, head perfumer at Chanel from 1978 to 2015, told me he found the same and deliberately assigned ‘important’ smell tasks to the first part of the day.
Feeling hungry? Good, your nose will perform better. ‘Processing in the olfactory pathway is heavily dependent on whether we are hungry or full,’ writes neuroscientist Gordon Shepherd in Neurogastronomy: How the Brain Creates Flavor and Why it Matters (Columbia University Press, 2012). Another reason to beware of lunch is that recently eaten food can interfere with the perception of taste, of sweetness, bitterness, astringency and acidity in a wine. Neutral (not salty) crackers and dry bread are best if you need tasting snacks. Avoid eating anything sweet for at least one hour before a tasting, because sugar can crash your palate completely and it takes a while to recover (I’ve never found a satisfactory explanation for this phenomenon – do get in touch if you can shed any light).
Also: ‘Be wary of toothpaste, especially minty ones, as they can ruin the taste of wine if used quite soon beforehand,’ advises Jancis Robinson MW.
Start with a good glass
‘While there’s a lot of marketing hype about stemware, just one well-made, decent-sized glass will do,’ says Australian wine journalist and competition judge Jane Faulkner. ‘It has to allow the aromatics to do their thing and help the wine open up. Basically, your nose has to fit into it. It is completely unnecessary to have glasses matched to particular wines or styles. Who has room for that? I standardise my professional tastings with the Riedel
Ouverture Magnum.’ (pictured on p27)
‘Shape, size and thickness of glass really can make an amazing difference to how a wine tastes – especially to the aromas,’ says Robinson, who, ‘needless to say’, is keen on her own, made in collaboration with designer Richard Brendon. Champagne should be tasted in a normal wine glass or bowed (wide) flute, never a tall, narrow flute.
Make the first sniff count
According to Steven Spurrier, Decanter’s former consultant editor: ‘Michael Broadbent’s flow of tasting still rules: colour, nose, palate, aftertaste and spit.’ (Sadly, Steven Spurrier passed away in March 2021; see Decanter’s tribute on p8.)
The clues offered by colour are of particular interest to those blind tasting, but they’re
important to normal drinkers, too. We drink with our eyes: what we see will influence flavour perception.
However, for anyone, the first sniff is key. American educator and founder of the Windows on the World Wine School, Kevin Zraly, says many of his pupils try to taste the wine before smelling it. ‘I say, “Stop. Wait. Don’t even think of trying this wine. We are going to spend three minutes [smelling]. I wanna hear you smell the wine.” Then I have them put their hand on top of the glass and swirl it, which intensifies the aromas [when you remove your hand and smell]. I say, “Look, I’m not a magician, did you just see what happened here?”’
If you have ever attended one of the legendary blind-tasting seminars run by Ronan Sayburn MS, head of wine at London private members’ club 67 Pall Mall, you could be forgiven for wondering if you’re ever going to taste the wine at all, such is the detail with
‘Avoid eating anything sweet for at least one hour before a tasting – sugar can crash your palate completely’
which he encourages his students to parse colour and aroma.
The first sniff is the deepest – or at least the most important, as Cat Stevens didn’t sing. Nasal adaptation means that your nose quickly acclimatises to smells. Each further sniff seems progressively less intense. If you notice that you’re suffering from nose fatigue, reset by smelling yourself: bury your nose in the crook of your arm.
The approach: hedonistic vs intellectual
It’s on tasting – as opposed to smelling – that there’s most divergence between the emotional and intellectual schools. That is, between the gestalt approach of looking at the whole and noting its effect on your senses – and the analytical rigour of the systematic approach taught to professional tasters, which considers acidity, tannin, body, alcohol, length, flavour, winemaking influence, difference between the nose and the palate, viscosity, primary and tertiary aromas... and so on.
‘Being analytical first and then allowing the emotional brain to kick in will give you the best tasting experience,’ explains Steve Smith MW, co-owner of Pyramid Valley Vineyards in New Zealand.
‘Discovering your strengths and weaknesses as a taster enables you to know why certain wine styles appeal to you’
Jeannie Cho Lee MW ( above)
Sayburn notes that even within the discipline of blind tasting there is a place for emotion. ‘It’s not a very scientific way to blind taste but – do you like it? If you gave me a glass of German Riesling to taste I’d be, “It’s lovely, I like that”. If you gave me an Italian Pinot Grigio, I often wouldn’t [like it], so I wouldn’t be putting that down as a Rheingau Riesling.’
Know your palate
‘Knowing your weaknesses is crucial to understanding your palate and eliminating biases accurately,’ says critic, consultant and educator Jeannie Cho Lee MW. ‘Are you less sensitive to tannins? Do you enjoy high acidity? Do you often miss wine faults like brettanomyces or TCA? Discovering your strengths and weaknesses as a taster will enable you to know why certain wine styles, varieties or producers appeal to you or turn you off. You’ll understand your palate preferences much faster and more easily, and the wines you gravitate towards will make sense.’
Below: the Riedel Ouverture Magnum glass
‘Being analytical first and then allowing the emotional brain to kick in will give you the best tasting experience’
Steve Smith MW
Recognising aroma and flavour
The ability to recognise and label smells can be innate – my four-year-old stuck her nose in a glass of Fourrier’s Gevrey-Chambertin and announced, delighted, ‘it smells of strawberries’. However, it’s not something at which humans are very good. Greg Sherwood MW, of Handford Wines, believes it is worth training your nose and mind to recognise and name specific aromas of, say, black pepper or raspberry. Sayburn takes a detective inspector’s approach to pinpointing aromas: ‘Most white wines smell a bit citrussy. But does it smell like lemon or is it more like an orange or mandarin? Is it an unripe citrus character, or is it more ripe?’
The art of tasting notes
‘Keep it simple when it comes to tasting notes,’ advises Zraly. Jason Haynes, director of Flint Wines, agrees that a few words can take you a long way. ‘The terms I use for wines I like are remarkably consistent and limited. I am less interested in trying to find a specific flower or herb that the wine reminds me of; it’s more of an overall feel for the wine. Whites may have good tension, vibrancy, stoniness, minerality (and I know some people hate that term). Reds I like might be crunchy, silky, perfumed, well defined, pure, delicate.’
Berkmann Wine Cellars purchasing director Alex Hunt MW is another advocate for picking up on texture. ‘This is what really separates the great from the merely good. Compare the toned plumpness of Alsace with the thrilling density of old-school white Burgundy,
the silk-backed sandpaper of young Barolo to the succulent fluidity of Sonoma Pinot. They are all just solutions in an alcohol-water base, and yet capable of evoking an immense range of textural impressions. For me, it’s a major part of the magic.’
One of the best pieces of tasting note advice I was given, many years ago, came from wine writer and critic Oz Clarke: ‘Sometimes there is no tasting note.’ So true. Move on.
Gauging drinking windows
This is an area in which experience, intellect and memory are key. Lee says: ‘The drinking window will depend on the style, grape variety, producer and vintage. Some wines will surprise you with how long they can age, so the end of the drinking window is harder to estimate; this comes mainly from experience with that particular wine and producer. For example, with experience you know that a Château Giscours Margaux will have a longer drinking window than d’Issan in the same vintage. Gauging accurate drinking windows is challenging even for professionals, and I think around half of the time we get it wrong. We improve with experience and time.’
And finally...
Says Faulkner: ‘My biggest tip to anyone who enjoys wine and wants to learn more, apart from practice: come to your own conclusion.’