Recently, my editor asked me a question about wine tastings. He was merely curious to know if there was a process to go about the whole thing. I have known Krishna for some time and it never once occurred to me that he is not a regular taster like me. And suddenly, I felt that maybe I need to revisit the basics: things which I, as a taster, take for granted, but which other less- addicted people wouldn’t consider primary general knowledge. Here then is a wine factoid.

COMMERCIAL BREAK
SCROLL TO CONTINUE READING

1. Wine is simple. It is nothing more then fermented grape juice.

2. All wines age, only some mature. To hang onto a bottle without knowing its holding potential is like proposing marriage to a girl without knowing her proclivities and preferences. By default, buy wine to drink it, store only wine which you are advised to, by someone who knows what he/ she is talking about.

3. The palate is a creature of habit. If you give it spice, it will get accustomed to them, but that doesn’t mean it loses the capability to tell subtler flavours. Personal exposures may change your sensitivity to certain flavours, but you can tell them nevertheless.

Routine spicy food does not render the palate numb in the long term. It is only momentary i.e. alongside a spicy, hot dish one may find it tough to tell wine flavours (may even find them corrosive) but in another setting, the said person would be as adept (or inept) at tasting as the next.

4. While we train our eyes and our ears, our noses are largely unformed. We can tell basic smells but often we can smell ‘something’ but can’t tell for sure what it is. This lack of cognisance is lesser of a problem for chefs. Ladies are generally gifted with a keener sense of smell as well. We all need to programme our noses to be able to tell the various aromas that emanate from a glass of wine.

5. A dry wine is one which seems to take away the moisture from our palate. A sweet wine is one with sugar. All wines are somewhere dry. Without dryness, balance in a wine would be hard-placed. Tannins in a red make them drier to taste. If the bitterness (again from tannins) is too disturbing, try and enjoy the wine alongside food.

6. Don’t bother with pairing too much. Chances are you will often find good food and wine and, juxtaposed with great company, you will have a fabulous and memorable evening. The idea of pairing is to heighten pleasure, so the only requirement is to give in, let your senses carry you and convey to you what they observe. Leave the clinical scientific bit for the chef and the sommelier.

7. With all the above mentioned, there is only one secret to gain control and mastery of your senses: Practice. There is no better a guru than repeat trials and encore. The more you try, the more you shall hone your tasting skills and the better you shall become at telling wines apart. And just when it all gets too mind-boggling and confusing, just remember two things: If I, an average Joe with whisky and rum saturated veins could learn to tell a thing or two about wines, then anyone can. And secondly, it is nothing but fruit juice, just gone bad in a very dignified way.