Preparing Your Palate For Wine Tasting

Wine tasting is more than just gulping down one mouthful of wine after another. In order to get the full experience of wine tasting it's helpful to prepare your palate. This allows you the opportunity to really appreciate each wine's flavors and textures. Here are some tips on how you can prepare for your next wine tasting.

Before your tasting, try to avoid eating or drinking anything that has a strong flavor. Things like coffee, tobacco, and garlic can linger on your palate and change the taste of wine. Try to stick to weaker flavors before you taste so you can get the full flavor of the wine without the influence of other foods. Something you may not have thought about that also has a strong flavor is toothpaste, so try to avoid wine tasting directly after brushing your teeth.

Tasting before a meal is a good way to prepare your palate. Your taste buds are more receptive before you eat than after. However, keep in mind that if you taste on an empty stomach you will be more apt to feel the effects of the alcohol so eat before your tasting, but not directly before.

Be conscious of the order in which you taste your wines for the best experience. It may be beneficial to taste dry to sweet, as the sugar in sweet wines tends to stick to your palate and effect the taste of the dry wines. Heavy, tannic red wines can also tire out your palate quicker than sweet whites. 

Drinking water frequently while tasting can also help refresh your mouth and give you the best tasting experience. On top of the tasting benefit, drinking water will also keep you hydrated and help to counter the alcohol so you can taste more without a hindered perception.

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At Home Palate Training Exercise

Your sense of taste is extremely important when tasting wine so here is an at home palate training exercise which will help you identify how you sense the tannin, acidity, sweetness, and alcohol in red wines.

What You'll Need:

• 1 bottle of dry red wine (avoid reds like Menage à Trois, Apothic Red and Jam Jar which contain Residual Sugar)

• 1 black tea bag

• 1/2 a lemon

• 1 tsp sugar

• 1 tsp vodka

• 4 identical wine glasses + one wineglass per person at the tasting

• a notepad and pen

Prepare the tasting:

Pour 3 oz of red wine in each of the 4 wine glasses. Add the tea bag to one glass, the 1/2 squeeze of lemon to the next glass, the sugar to the next glass, and the vodka to the last glass. Fill your own glass with red wine; it will act as your control glass.

Tannin - Black Tea Bag

In about 10 minutes, the black tea should dissolve at which point you can remove the bag. Taste the control wine first, then the black tea wine (without smelling it) and jot down what your taste and how it felt on your tongue. Tannin is usually bitter but you may also feel a drying sensation.

Acidity - Lemon

Taste your control wine, then taste the lemon win (without smelling it). With increases acidity, you may notice the lemon wine tastes less bold, your mouth may water, and more of the natural bitter notes may be presented. Try to ignore the lemony flavors since this is not a feature of acids in wine.

Sweetness - Sugar

Stir the sugar into your wine. After tasting your control wine, taste your sugar wine (you can smell it first). You should notice the sugar doesn't make the wine taste sweeter. Instead it brings out the fruit flavors of the wine and may add an oily texture to the aftertaste.

Alcohol - Vodka

Taste your control wine, then taste the vodka wine (without smelling it). Note what sensations you feel on your tongue and in the back of your throat when you swallow. Tiny prickles may be felt which makes the wine feel thicker. You may feel a hot sensation in the aftertaste.

Since everyone has different tastes and preferences, this exercise is meant to help you identify which aspects of wine you personally pick up on.

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The Proper Way to Taste Wine

Tasting wine is a little more complicated than you may think. There is a certain way to get the full effect of the wine. With these four basic steps you'll get the full wine tasting experience:

1. Look - The first and easiest step is to look at the wine. Observe the color, transparency, and consistency of the wine. The appearance of a wine can tell a lot about how it looks.

2. Smell - The next step is to smell the wine. Through this step you can find out a little more about what flavors a wine contains. You can smell if there may be citrus fruits, or tropical fruits. A lot of our taste comes from the scent of what we are consuming so this is a good way to appreciate the wine.

3. Taste - Tasting the wine is the most important step. However, it is not as simple as you may think. A lot of wines have a different taste while in your mouth compared to once you swallow due to receiving them retro-nasally. While tasting, notice if the wine is sweet, salty, or bitter. Due to the acid in grapes, most wines will have some sour to them. You should also notice the texture of the wine. We perceive some wines as higher in texture because of it's age. Also take note of the length of a wine. What it tastes like in the beginning, middle (known as "mid-palate"), and end (known as "finish") of the taste often changes. Different wines leave you sooner than others, as well. (View our post on The Language of Wine.)

4. Conclude - The last step is to come to a conclusion. Did you like the wine? Did it contain flavors you enjoyed? Was it balanced or did you think it was too acidic or alcoholic? There are so many different wines to choose from so it's important to take note of which ones you like and don't like.