The Outer Limit does not Exist: The Why of Tastings

Scenes from The Offering: VOL. 001

I recently wrapped up another round of back-to-back shows with the comedians of In Pour Taste, a wine tasting & comedy show hybrid experience hosted at The Blume Studios here in Charlotte, NC, and was presented with this oddly profound question of “why?” throughout the shows.

“What is the purpose of a wine tasting?”

That was the exact phrasing of the question posed by the comedians during one of their bits. While I always had an answer for it, I didn’t realize just how many consumers were often asking the same thing—just not out loud. So much of my professional & student career in wine has centered around the act of tasting. In my opinion, it is the only way to put the information from the text into context when you don’t have a transportation to a vineyard or winery readily available. The repetition of tasting allows us to train our palates to discern winemaking techniques, clearly define aromatics or flavors, understand how place affects a wine, and so, so much more. Wine professionals are a different kind of athlete; our workouts involve strengthening our brain & olfactory system versus our legs & arms.

But the average wine enthusiast or casual drinker is not trying to train to be some wine version of an Olympian. So that is where the question of a wine tasting’s purpose gets interesting.

The goal of a wine tasting, from a professional’s vantage point, is to assess quality in a wine & determine it's place within a wine list or beverage program, if it is a fitting selection for a client, or if the wine works for an event experience. We are cycling through this rolodex in some way when tasting through a wine or line up of wines. This desire to seek quality & understand the expression of a grape extends into blind tastings, which are often only relevant to talk about if you are going for a certification in the wine world or judging in a wine competition. The blind element allows for us to do the same thing, assess for quality, except now we walk into the tasting without any pre-conceived notion about the producer, grape, wine region or wine style being presented in the glass. That is the responsibility we as wine professionals have when executing a tasting for the end-consumer to experience.

For the consumer, the goal of a wine tasting is to broaden your horizons & help you explore the outer limits of what you believe your palate preference to be. We as human beings often stick with the familiar because we seek control over our own external perception & identity even in something as simple as our tastes in wine. An open mind during a wine tasting will open you up to things you love in the glass, things you hate in the glass, and juice that finds itself somewhere in the middle of those two spectrums that is worth revisiting later down the road. Hell, this is what makes Somms around the globe eager to serve you tableside in a restaurant or why that local wine shop clerk is bursting with energy in their recommendations. We get presented with a unique opportunity to help you during those revisits of a wine you believed wasn’t your jam. Then if you still don’t enjoy it, we then get the chance to just turn you on to something closer to the core of your palate, but still new enough to inch you closer to the edge.

At no point during your time on this mortal plane will you have the opportunity to taste every single variation or interpretation of a wine that will ever exist. So, that friend who says they hate Chardonnay because of *insert stereotype* can only say that about the Chardonnay they’ve actually experienced in the glass. The versions of the grape they haven’t had yet may just be the catalyst for their conversion.

I’ve waxed poetic many times before about how wine is true art form. Much of it is shaped by the land, but the creative nature of humans allows for variation & experimentation that can continuously weave a new story with every bottle. It is my hope that this entry, as many have been lately, encourages you to actively seek to be challenged with every wine you come across.

May that challenge also come at you during a thoughtful wine tasting experience to sweeten the deal.

Sip thoughtfully. Savor memorably. Wine, but make it fashion.

Cheers,

The Certified Wino