Trusting your Palate

It takes an extraordinarily high level of confidence absolutely to trust your own palate when tasting a wine.  Each of us has had numerous experiences when others, tasting the same wine, have said they experience some component that you just don’t “get”. I myself recall tasting the new vintage of Barolo at Francesco Rinaldi with friends who really drink a lot more Barolo than I do and whose opinions I greatly respect. After the tasting I said to the group that I had found the Cannubi particularly tannic - more so than the Brunate. My friends in unison said they had found the opposite to be the case - that the Brunate was much the more tannic of the two. So not only was I apparently wrong but I had diminished my credibility among my friends as a competent taster.  I was left wondering I would ever be any good at it and resolved in future not to be the first to express a view, so as not to risk embarrassing myself further. 

This is silly. There are many reasons why what I perceive in a wine may not align with what others perceive. And their perceptions do not mean that mine are not faithful representations of what I taste. Jamie Goode’s book Tasting Red clearly evidences this. I wrote an earlier post on the topic of the high degree of subjectivity in tasting, but I touch on this point here because it clearly goes to one’s confidence as a taster. I taste what I taste and no one can tell me I should not be tasting those flavors or structural components in the wine - at least not within certain wide boundaries of descriptive competence. Even if three people find a wine tannic that you do not, this does not mean you are wrong.

While it is easy to assert that you cannot be wrong, it is quite another thing to actually believe it - as my Rinaldi experience illustrates. With practice and time comes both competence and a greater understanding of the uniqueness of your own palate. So much so that I now know to which components in a wine I may be particularly sensitive and indeed when, in the course of tasting, certain sensations will become prominent. I know, for example, that I am unlikely to be the first to notice that a wine is mildly corked. And I know I sometimes interpret what others perceive as intense flavors of cassis as mild volatile acidity, though I do not understand why. But I do know I am quite sensitive to volatile acidity, which may have something to do with it. I also know that the sensation of tannins for me accumulates significantly as I drink more of the wine. I may not get it right away but by the end of the glass I will agree with those who noticed the high tannin level on their first sip. The same is true of new oak - I am pretty sensitive to it to start with, but by the second glass I may find the sensation so strong as seriously to compromise my opinion of the wine. Others may find the oak present but nicely integrated. I might indeed notice the oak sensation on the first sip that others only later perceive. And so it goes.

Nor is there anything wrong to my mind with needing some time with a wine fully to witness everything it has to reveal - both good and less good.  It may be that I am not the best “one sip” taster. And if that failing makes me less good as a taster then so be it. But my measure and assessment of a wine has no need of being made in a single first sip. If I buy the wine I am intending to drink at least a whole glass of it !  Common wisdom also says many wines change quite a bit in the glass over even the first 20 minutes or so.  And in the conversation between myself and the wine in the glass before me I think some of my perceptive faculties take a little time to warm up too. Maybe it is not just the wine that is changing. Knowing this, if I write a note, it will be when the glass is empty. This is not because the last sip is more representative of the wine than the first sip ( though often I believe it is) but because I can evaluate the whole experience of my interaction with what is in the glass over more than a single moment.

One’s prowess as a taster is assessed today by how well you can perceive and communicate what you experience in the first or second sip of a wine, and how well those sensations align with what others experience in their first few moments with the wine. Certainly that is the measure of a wine critic. And it can serve a useful purpose. I suppose I wish I was better at it. But actually I don’t much care about that. What matters to me is what did I experience and enjoy about the wine when I have finished the glass. What did it have to say ? How well did it go with the food ? Did it make me happy ? These are not assessments made in the very first moment but perhaps over the course of an hour or so. And if you look at it from this perspective, it is easier to see that the experience has a good degree of subjectivity to it. And no one can tell me I am wrong, even though this type of commentary will not get me through any wine exams.

See my earlier post on the discipline of writing wine tasting notes, which makes some of the same points in that context.