Wine Tasting Skills: Tips for Developing Your Palate
Training your wine palate requires consistency, dedication, and a lot of practice. It is a skill that must be honed through hours of tasting and through noting and memorizing the smaller nuances that make different vintages and grape varietals distinct. While there are those who have a naturally attuned wine palate, wine tasting skills should and can be developed. In this article, we will provide simple techniques and tips that you can use to help strengthen your ability to discern notes of fruit, floral, earthy, herbal and so much more. The Art of Wine Tasting: Why a Developed Palate is Key The palate is triggered by four senses: sight, smell, feel (texture) and taste. In order to prime your palate, you need to ensure that you are fully engaged with each of these senses during the wine tasting experience. Only once you have mastered the skill of harmonizing all of the aforementioned senses, then you will notice an improvement in your ability to better detect various aromas and notes more easily. Properly tasting wine should bring an elevated experience to your enjoyment of the product. That is why practicing and developing your palate is key in taking that enjoyment to the next level. Once you have mastered these wine tasting skills, you will notice your taste preferences broadening which will open your eyes, mind and palate to a wider range of wine. Wine Tasting Skills: Tips for Training Your Palate Whether you are tasting at an event, in the comfort of your own home or with a group of friends, there are helpful tips and techniques you can use as part of wine palate training. These exercises will allow you to hone your analytical wine skills as well as refine your wine vocabulary. Follow Your Nose A wine’s smell will play a large role in your perception of the wine before your glass even reaches your lips. Sniffing your wine prior to tasting will give you an immediate sense of a wine’s aroma. Having said that, it is essential to swirl your wine glass first as this will introduce oxygen and therefore, the aromas will open up. Once the wine has been aerated, you can proceed to experience the aromas more profoundly. As part of developing your wine palate, training your nose to decipher between savoury and sweet notes such as spices or fruit aromas will tremendously improve your confidence in a tasting. To train your nose, take time to smell fruits, vegetables, flowers, and herbs at a grocery or market. This will help with building a catalogue of smells in your mind as the olfactory system is linked to memory and this will really help you in identifying them when wine tasting. Take Some Air With Each Sip Since some flavours in a wine are only triggered in the presence of oxygen, you must learn the art of aspiration. This requires you to take a small sip of the wine and suck a bit of air into your mouth …