The Wine Tasting Grail

Napoleon once said, “Wine is the intellectual part of a meal.” Thank you Emperor, but does that mean wine appreciation requires being a great thinker or a learned academic?

I don’t think so; but you need to acquire a sensory education leading to three essential goals. First, learn how to grab and identify certain sensations. Second, acquire psychological independence, making you removed from outside influences.

Third, attain autonomy and ease of judgment. So, to acquire a complete independence of judgment necessary to taste wine, you have to persuade yourself that there is no systematic and direct relationship between the quality of a wine and the appearance of its flask, name or price.

For instance, is Champagne presented in a fancy-shaped bottle necessarily better than a Champagne in a standard bottle? No. Can a Chateau Petrus be disappointing? Yes, sometimes.

Can an obscure Merlot from Washington state be better than Petrus? Yes, sometimes.

Can a $50 bottle of wine be better than a $500 bottle of wine? Yes, often. 
Here are some tips. 

You don’t have an opinion until you taste
To illustrate the power of visual presumption in an even wider spectrum than wine, I used to conduct the following experiment at L’Academie du Vin in Paris for wine cadets:

Four glasses were photographed, each containing different liquids:
* A high-bowl glass with a green liquid
* A snifter (eau-de-vie glass) with a brown liquid
* A tulip-shaped glass with a red liquid
* A flute-shaped glass with a yellow bubbly liquid

These slides were shown on a screen and the students were asked to identify what was in the glasses. The answers were always stunningly fast and confident: mint, brandy, red wine, sparkling wine. In reality, the glasses were all filled with synthetic liquids which had nothing to do with the beverages. Nobody ever said, “I don’t know, I didn’t taste them.” The object of that lesson was precisely to have these young wine aficionados sin once, and then remember for the rest of their “wine life” that you don’t have an opinion until you taste something.  

Write it down
The best wine tasting advice I ever received was in the early ‘70s from Michael Broadbent, then director of wine at Christie’s in London and still probably one of the finest palates in the world. I was a young sommelier at la Tour d’Argent then and he told me to make a note on every wine I tasted: its name, producer, vintage, date of tasting and price, with notes on appearance, nose and taste.

Over the past 35 years I have amassed a record number of wine notes which I have gradually stored in my computer. It’s a very helpfull, ongoing database of past and current wine tasting notes at my fingertips. It has proven priceless when analyzing the evolution of the same vintage wine.

Get to know the subject and drink the stuff
Wine is as infinite a subject as that of art in general. You have to know the basic facts of geography, grape varieties, styles and prices. Read and taste; taste and read. Better still, join or start a tasting group, enroll in wine classes, compare impressions. This is the best way to learn the many types of wines. Yet, tasting is not everything. Wine is for drinking. The true wine lover will drink wine frequently and regularly and never with indifference.

Go for price over value
Pay as much as you can for a good bottle of wine. There is very little point in buying wine whose

bottle, packaging, shipping, trade mark-ups and duty (like in Indonesia) end up costing more than the liquid in the bottle. What is the value of the actual wine in the bottle then? Next to nothing, so don’t waste your money.

On the other hand you may want to club together with friends, on a regular basis if you can, to pay more for wine than you could afford on your own. Besides, their company will increase your tasting pleasure and their opinions will improve your understanding.

Wine wisdom
Remember that wine tasting is not a test; your subjective response is more important than any “right” answer. The bottom line is that wine that tastes good to you is good wine. The goal in tasting wine is not to discern the same aromas and flavors that another taster is describing, but rather to hone your own perceptual abilities and develop your vocabulary to articulate them. Consequently, a true wine lover converses more with his or her glass that with another taster.

Wine tasting has an escape value comparable to other art forms and at the same time is a source of culture because it teaches discriminations, tempers impulsions and refines judgment.

Wine tasting’s originality is that it rejuvenates and preserves two senses which we are steadily “ignoring” if not losing, the sense of taste and smell.

Wine is also here for that purpose, and the wine tasting approach is a school of humility. But, as Aubert de Villaine, co-owner of the Domaine de la Romanee Conti, likes to say: “Never trust journalists, listen to your palate!”

Christian Vanneque was head sommelier of La Tour d’Argent in Paris and
professor at L’Academie du Vin in Paris. He served as a judge at the
legendary 1976 Paris Wine Tasting.      

Contact: Christian@TheWineCircus.com

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