In our previous two installments of this series, we delved deep into the more philosophical and experiential aspects of honing your palate through more astute tasting. Being so analytical and abstract is surely frustrating to some of you who may just want to know how to go about lifting barbells of flavor with your tongue. Before we move on to brass tacks, I want you to know that the mode of thought you happen to be in when approaching this task is equally important as the actual process, something that is too often overlooked in many guides. In an era where the befuddlement of wine drinkers grows with overall wine enthusiasm, we need to define purity of goal and make sure people are not undertaking the task of honing their palate to become boors and elitists. So if you have just stumbled upon this little guide, please take a moment to read parts one and two.

Wine can be given your appropriate concentration in many different forums. In fact, there are so many ways to squeeze in the more formal parts of this exercise that there may be many more times it is appropriate than it is not appropriate. Generally speaking, we need to remember the lessons learned and keep in our minds first and foremost the fact that we’re doing this to enhance enjoyment. Sometimes this is a medium-term investment when we sacrifice a little bit of fun for more down the road. However, if we are oppressing our own sense of enjoyment in order to achieve a stronger palate then we are clearly missing the point. To boil it down, just remember to have fun.

In part one we talked about some tools you may need to enhance our experience. Again a notebook is of critical necessity. The consideration on what kind of notebook to use is largely dependant on what situations you think you’re going to be using it in. If you go out a lot and like to sample through wines with friends (and who doesn’t?), a small portable notebook that can be pulled out of a pocket or purse is perfect. When you do pull out that notebook and choose to jot down a few notes, don’t make it a solitary interlude to a sociable experience, instead involve the crowd even if they themselves are not undertaking the exercise to buff up their palates.

It’s also important not to dull our senses because we’re trying to concentrate on writing down our impressions. From the very beginning of the experience you should be trying to open up all the channels of your senses and focusing them on the wine and the surroundings around you, the wine, and the overall experience. Revel in the anticipation as you, your friends, or your server goes through the ceremony of opening a bottle. Discuss or inquire about the history or significance behind the wine as it sits in your glass. Take it all in before you begin to write.

The table

“The table” is such a loaded phrase, isn’t it? Like lighting a fire or planting something with your bare hands, the table has seemed to become entrenched in our genetic conscious and just feels primal. Think of the sheer volume of civilization and culture that has passed across this often humble article of furniture. Be it rough hewn, in the style of the French renaissance, or even just a blanket on the green grass, the table is a necessity for what we’re doing. It is for us the mis en place, it is the stage on which the ensuing drama is about to unfold.

It need not be overly adorned, even just glassware and some bottles with red stains running down their labels makes for a beautiful backdrop. What’s more important is the acknowledgment that “this is the table. This is where it is all going to take place.”

Saying hello

After you have built up a bit of anticipation (and dare I say longing), address the wine. I know this sounds formal or stuffy, but what I’m advocating is to pick a moment to turn all your focus on the wine. The best analogy I can come up with is that moment in the taxi or at home after you and your significant other have gone to a party. The whole night you strolled around, socialized, caught fleeting glances of your counterpart doing the same. You got tied up in conversation, got cornered near the bathroom, and were generally deprived of your love. Finally, you get a moment alone and you turn to each other and say “Oh there you are. How are you?” As loaded as that analogy is, addressing the wine should be like that.

First you are engaging your sense of vision. Look at the wine in the glass as it sits on the table. Look at the hue of the wine glinting in the candlelight or against the beautiful panorama of the table. As you pick up the glass, give it a perfunctory swirl as much to feel the weight and get a tactile sensation as much to activate any aromas.

Smelling hello

Much has been made about the importance of our olfactory sense on our overall palate experience. Some even claim that aroma constitutes over 75% of our sense of taste. I’m not willing to comment on specifically how influential it is, but from my own experience aroma is the glue that really holds the whole experience together. So, take your time with the wine and let your nose in on the fun. It is not uncommon for me to smell great wines for 5 or so minutes before diving in and sipping. I feel I have to draw the analogy to love making again: the more you drink in the experience before getting down to the nitty gritty, the better the nitty gritty is once you finally get there.

Much of what the knowledgeable do seems like voodoo to the un-initiated and indeed oftentimes some of the ceremony is affected without knowing why, but almost every aspect of the wine tasting ceremony has a very practical purpose. In the case of swirling the wine in the glass, this is not done so much to aerate the wine as is commonly thought, but to vaporize the wine and enhance the aroma. To get the maximum use out of swirling, you should be swirling, then immediately plunging your nose into the glass to take a big smooth inhale through your nose. I also take in a little bit of air through my mouth as I do this and find that the aroma particles hitting my tongue enhances the experience. I have also, on occasion, swirled a wine somewhat violently to introduce oxygen to what I feel is a young tight wine, but that’s rare and such an effect is better accomplished through decanting.

In our initial learning phases we are simply looking to experience. Most wines of any quality will often have more than a few aromas going on in the glass. At first we simply try to pick them out and use experiences we know to compare. Ever trample through the raspberry patches when you were a kid? Smell something similar in this or that wine? That’s what we’re focusing on at first—only the most primal and basic scents.

From there we really don’t need to focus on getting more particular about our language and about what we’re sensing, because I think that comes naturally if you’re devoting your attention to the wine. The conscious part of an advancing sense of smell comes when we start to understand causality. Smelling brioche or vanilla or buttered toast? Ah, must be some level of toasting in the oak treatment. Hey, this California Chardonnay smells like sweet baked pears, what gives? Ah, I see there’s a little Chenin Blanc in it to sweeten it up, no doubt. There are really way too many aroma-vinification correlations to list here. The best way to deduce these links is to bone up on how the wine is made after you’ve thoroughly tasted the wine and wrote notes. You’ll be able to confirm or deny your suspicions then and in your future tastings your suspicions as to the vinification of a wine will become more specific and more accurate. In a group this can be quite fun and almost a game. If everyone brings one wine to taste to a tasting party and studies up on the wine they’re bringing ahead of time, everyone can then compare what they thought to what the winery actually did and see who was closest.

Once we have had a good whiff of the stuff we have a couple of options. Here we can decide to whip out our notebooks and start jotting down our thoughts. When we write, we are simply writing down the connections we have made to other things, whether they are simple or complex. It is important to note that some wines are just simple so if they seem to exhibit a limited aroma dimension it does not mean that your perception or the wine is flawed. Simple can be beautiful, too. Again, at this point we’re trying not to judge, only to evaluate.

Palate components: The money shot

We’ve put off gratification for too long and finally it’s time to taste our wine. If you are in a dinner situation, it is important to smell and taste the wine solo, before you’ve introduced any food elements. When you do drink, put only a medium size swallow into your mouth and as you do so, inhale through your nose. Don’t swallow immediately, but first make sure the wine hits every part of your tongue. Mouthwash-type swishing and swashing is unnecessary and foolish. However, some people continue to draw air in and sort of “gurgle” the wine. What this is doing is similar to swirling the wine in the glass by vaporizing it and shooting the aroma components up into your nasal cavity. This is quite effective and you can prove the efficacy to yourself simply by swallowing some part of the wine and not taking any air in, then taking air in suddenly. You’ll notice a huge intensification of the flavor experience because you’re getting your olfactory sense involved. Once I’m ready to swallow the wine, I often exhale through my nose as I swallow and that helps me stay on top of the after-palate.

Our straight aromatic sensations tend to be an “all at once” experience where all the components come at once and we have to pick them apart. The palate has a few different stages depending on the complexity of the wine, however. People refer to these stages commonly as the “attack”, the “mid-palate” and the “finish”. This is simply a way to segment an ever-changing experience to make it easier to convey. In reality, it’s less like a multi-stage rocket firing and more like ebb and flow of the Northern Lights. However, if it’s easier for you at first to concentrate on the “thirds” of the palate experiences, that’s fine. Just keep in mind that is an imperfect notion. The greater the wines you taste, the more this will become evident.

Breaking the palate experience up in thirds will help us to write down our thoughts. If it’s helpful to you to take three different tastes so you can concentrate on the three different stages separately, who’s going to stop you? Don’t be surprised, though, if some wines have no finish, or seem to rush from beginning to end quickly. In fact, you should be paying attention to how a wine develops and writing that down in your notebook. Again, when you are addressing the various stages, concentrate on the correlations to the outside world and rely on those. As with aroma, you can look up causal relationships after everything is said and done.

You may want to concentrate on how sweet the wine seems and how acidic it is. You want to think about how well you think the sweetness and the acidity work with the other flavor components. Likewise think about earthiness, fruitiness, effervescence, and oakiness.

Some may wish to wait until after they’ve analyzed the wine to start writing, others may wish to write from the very get-go. Neither way is incorrect, so do what feels more natural to you. To start you may want to order your notes in the same order you addressed the wine: look, smell, palate stages, general thoughts. More complex ways of making notes may come to you later and be dependant on your personality and your preferred writing style.

Logging your results

There are lots of imaginable ways you can write this stuff down. It's important that you establish a naming convention first and foremost and stick to it. I usually use the following: Producer, Varietal (if applicable), Appellation, Cuvee/Vineyard name (if applicable) and finally vintage. For example, I entered the following note into my notebook the other night, "Abadia Retuerta, Sardon de Duero, Rivola, 2002". I didn't use commas, but put them in here so it's easier to see the seperate parts.

From there what you decide to enter is largely subjective. I usually like to put the approximate retail price in there in case I decide to go back and buy the wine again some day. It goes without daying that the date tasted is somewhere on there, as well.

Don’t forget to drink the stuff

I’ve asserted before that the intoxicating effects of the alcohol are not undesirable in any way. So once you feel you’ve devoted an appropriate amount of concentration on the wine you’re tasting, don’t forget to stop tasting and to drink it. That’s the whole point, anyway.

At this point foods may be introduced and hopefully conversation will be the companion to your notes. These are not superfluities. If your companions compel you to realize something about the wine or to add a level of specificity you were grasping for, write it down. Write down how the wine interacts with the  food. Is it acidic enough to cut through the fats? Is the sweetness of the wine tripping on the subtle flavors of the food or perhaps vice versa?

While you may want to take a brief time out from drinking to go through the whole address, smell, taste process again to see how the wine and your perception of it are changing, it is obviously pretty tedious to do all this for every sip of wine you take. Sometimes in the sterile confines of a structured tasting for “experts” while people sniff, gargle and spit, I often think to myself “Wine is for drinking, aren’t we missing the point here?” Indeed, whole swaths of wine are engineered to be stunning on those first steps, but after even half a glass they become tedious and overly loud. How a wine holds up to continued drinking is just as important to how it stands up to your momentary concentrations. So, if you find yourself becoming bored with a wine, or even better if a wine was underwhelming at first taste but has begun to show it’s charm and subtlety on further drinking, you should be noting this in your notebook. In the exercise we are departing from the standard wine critic review. But would you buy a car based on the evaluations of someone who just drove it once around the block? We’re in this until the bottom of the bottle, never forget that.

Days later

It is fun to go back and review your notes, especially upon the event of a later re-tasting of the same wine. In fact, that’s almost exactly why we are keeping these notebooks in the first place. I commonly find that many things of artistic nature (books, movies, good wine, etc.) often haunt me long after the experience is over. In a way these things plant a seed in my subconscious that keeps growing and prevents me from forgetting. Literally food for thought. I place a great deal of emphasis on my intuitive self and I think you should, too. If a wine seemed monolithic or underwhelming on first blush, but you can’t seem to shake the memory of it, then it was probably a great wine that needs revisiting both in your mind and in your glass. These are the perfect opportunities to go back and review and possibly revise your notes. If you think there is a possibility you can taste the wine later, perhaps you can save revisions for a whole other note.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3