On Taste

A good storyteller is hard to come by, but impossible to ignore. You recognize one by that undeniable, gravitational pull on your attention, someone who somehow piques every sense with a rich voice that attracts your ears and reverberates through your sternum, a deeply charismatic gaze that holds your eyes, and that fluttering feeling of your imagination grinding into motion. Sitting over dinner, I found myself inexcusably distracted by just such a rare character, something about a friend who married a Hollywood entertainer who died early, at which point the widower moved to San Francisco and they became friends with many adventures. I tore myself away at that point, but it struck me that a great wine is almost as rare a find as this charming storyteller, and similarly enchanting - truly requiring that you exercise every sense in appreciating its character.

Friends frequently ask, what's the right way to go about tasting a wine? Proceeding first with the disclaimer that I am certainly no authority, there is not a "right" or wrong way to taste, because the best you can do is have a guideline by which you approach your glass. This metaphorical storyteller is about as perfect a launching point as I could ask for, because any new wine should instill some curiosity and fascination, engaging your senses in evaluating its color, nose, finish, and of course the responses it elicits from your palate.

If you've walked into a tasting room, you've seen how this strange ritual goes down: Tasting room attendant / wine educator / purveyor of liquid poetry administers a splash of the good stuff into a glass that is preferably clear and free of any lipstick marks from the previous user. What you're looking for at this point is, first, the color - is it golden? straw? brownish? ruby? a deep rich red? inky-purple? Then give it a swirl, and don't be shy; maybe you vigorously swirl it around several times, particularly in the case of reds that need some oxygen to open up the flavors. Checking out the glass again, see what kind of legs your lady is showing off - the more alcoholic a wine, the more pronounced the legs (streaks of wine down the side of the glass) will be. Now tip your nose into the glass and take a good whiff or two; don't cram your face into the bowl, but also don't be afraid to get close enough to get a full idea of the nose, or bouquet. Finally, raise the glass to your lips and take a taste or two.

And here is where things get complicated. The ways in which a wine activates your sense of taste are varied and many, primarily based on its components (alcohol, acid, sugar, tannins). It's the winemaker's job to put these pieces in place, though the approach differs based on each varietal's character. Depending on the structure or body of a wine, the texture will be different - from crisp and clean to velvety and buttery to a drying tannic finish. The individual flavors within a wine will also hit your tongue at different places; research differs as to how we perceive taste, but it's generally accepted that different taste buds taste different types of flavors (e.g. bitter, sweet). Rather than gulping a quick sip and nodding as others ramble about intense flavors of cracked leather, take your time and note how the wine changes as it moves from the front of your mouth to the back of your throat, what different flavors gradually come out even after you have swallowed that first sip, and how it feels on your tongue. In fact, take a second or third sip; better yet, give the wine 5 or 10 minutes and take another taste - you'll often find the flavor has evolved, and that's definitely not just your imagination.

The hardest apart about wine tasting, at least for me, was learning to verbalize the experience, which is simply a vocabulary exercise. A basic aroma wheel is a good starting place, providing the common flavors you may find in a wine; as for that taste of "cat's piss on an oak fence post" that you might find in someone's creative tasting notes - well, I can't really identify that, either. Once you have a basic proficiency in wine vocabulary, it becomes much easier to describe what you taste. There are also descriptors that are pretty common to general types of wine. Sauvignon blanc, for example, frequently tastes of pineapple and citrus / tropical fruits, while oaked chardonnays have a vanilla-laced finish and many heavier reds taste like dark berries, coffee, currants or cassis.

As for what to do about that person with the bottle standing across from you? Well, common etiquette would call for simply being friendly and polite. It's the tasting room representative's job to be both a host and salesperson and, as such, there really isn't a stupid question. Better to show your ignorance and learn the answers to your questions than to feign superior knowledge and reveal how little you know. It's safe to assume you know less about the wine than they do, because it's their job to know about the vineyard, production, label, and to share that knowledge with you. Plus, it's more fun for both sides to have a friendly back and forth, and the person pouring for you should be able to gauge your level of knowledge and tailor their approach to make sure that you get the most out of the experience. Common questions may be centered about the winemaking process (oak or steel fermented, months in barrel-aging, recommended bottle aging, production size, etc.), but it's also fair game to ask more general questions (why the turbines in the vineyards, where are the vines grown, how are they harvested, etc.).

To put it all together, the best way to get the most out of a tasting experience is to put aside any self-consciousness and take the time to study a wine, ask questions, and generally learn as much as you can. There's no substitute for drinking a broad variety of wines, attentively noting the differences to build a foundation of knowledge to reference in future tastings. Put all these components together, and hopefully you get a fairly compelling story out of that glass sitting in front of you on the tasting bar.

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Useful references:
http://www.winepros.org/wine101/sensory_guide.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_tasting_descriptors