Developing a palette for wine requires consistency and exposure. You may have an event to plan and need to select high-quality wines for your guests; it can be pretty challenging to choose from a wide array of wine types for your event. Developing a wine palette requires stretching or breaking your barriers with new experiences. However, it can be fun to taste as many wine types as possible; the difficulty comes when choosing. Keep reading below to learn how you can develop a palette for wine.
Understand the basics of tasting wine.
Wine tasting is more than complimenting every wine given to you. It begins with looking at the wine’s color before you smell, swirl, and taste. A wine’s color, be it autumnal red colors, ruby, or purple, tells the wine’s age and flavor complexity. A close look gives you a mental note of what you are about to taste. After looking, you inhale the aroma to glimpse the wine’s features, such as its primary scent, the possible alcohol content, and additional aromas. Give the cup a swirl to release and separate the unique aroma of the wine before taking a sip.
Understand your desired palate.
Your chosen palate should speak to you and generally consists of everything you desire. Your culture and upbringing strongly influence your palate preferences, so it’s common to lean towards wines similar to our past experiences. We all want to take a sip and reminisce on a happy memory or choose a wine type with a similar smell to our favorite childhood candy. Ensure you understand your palate by choosing smell, aroma, and texture that suits your senses. Compile them into a list and list the possible wine types.
Isolate flavors and visualize them.
Have you noticed that most people close their eyes during wine tasting? They do this not because they are dizzy or sleepy, but instead, they are trying to isolate the flavors of the wine mentally. When you taste a wine, we recommend you take a moment before gulping it down. Use your taste buds to separate each added flavor. Do you taste vanilla? Cinnamon? Rose? Does this taste align with the list you have in mind? Answer these questions before moving on to the next bottle.
Pay attention to the wine’s texture.
The wine’s taste is often the star of the show, but the wine’s texture can tell you all you need to know. Texture can help heighten the taste and allow you to feel. When you sip some wines, you can almost feel the chewy tannins and their minerality. A simple trick to know more about the texture is to touch the roof of your mouth with your tongue and try to discern what you feel.
Visit Bar Vlaha in Brookline, MA
As your palate expands, you will likely discover your favorites and not-so-favorites and even find new tastes. Bar Vlaha is here to help you through your wine-tasting journey. We can assist in building your palate for your events and ease the stress of wine tasting.
