Class 1: Before You Taste --

and See and Sniff

WHAT DO WINE EXPERTS DO?

Being one of Wine Spectator's expert tasters sounds glamorous and fun. After all, the Senior Editors get to
taste amazing wines and travel to beautiful wine regions and all they need to do is to write a few tasting notes
and an occasional article for the magazine. (You should have heard Bruce Sanderson laughing at this
description.)

In reality, it's not that straightforward.

For each outstanding wine, they taste dozens of quaffing wines. And before they show up for a tasting, a lot of
background work needs to be completed.

Tasting actually includes these four activities:

1. Observe
2. Describe
3. Compare
4. Evaluate

What do you think is involved in each of these activities?

Read on to answer this question.

Observe

This means using your senses to perceive, identify and measure stimuli. It takes a lot of tasting and studying to
hone your senses and keep them in top form.

You need to

 Understand how your senses work so you can use them to get every nuance out of a wine

 Train your eyes to see different colors and levels of intensity

 Train your sense of smell to recognize and identify many different aromas, from apple to bosky to
cassis

 Train your senses of taste and touch to measure the relative power of the sugars, acids and tannins in
the wine

Describe

This means using the vocabulary and knowledge acquired through years of tasting and study to write tasting
notes that consistently and succinctly reveal wine's important features.
Compare

This means recalling similar wine types to use as benchmarks and predicting the wine's peak drinking window.

The prerequisites are, of course, tasting and study as well as organization and memorization.

Evaluate

This means synthesizing all the information gathered in the preceding steps and finally judging the wine quality.
And the more you do it, the better you get at doing it, so more tasting practice is required.

By now, you probably have a fair idea of what it takes to become a wine expert: a lot of tasting and studying -
and then more tasting and more studying.
As our wines mature, they gain a more supple texture. The bouquet evolves, going towards mushroom and
earth while losing some of the fresh fruit aromas.

It's a very interesting process to follow the maturation of a wine. People often ask me when they should drink
the wine. I jokingly tell them that they have the choice between lunch and dinner.

But seriously, I think that nobody should lay down the law that this wine must be drunk in a specific year. It's
got a drinking span of maybe 20 years; it's going to be good when it's 5 or 6 years old and when it's 25 years
old.

— Anthony Barton, owner

Chateau Léoville-Barton
St. Julien, France

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APPLE

Apple is sometimes used to describe white wines. And is it a green or red or yellow apple? Granny Smith or
red delicious?

BOSKY

Sometimes used to describe Pinot Noir and other reds, bosky is a collective term for the forest floor, including
earthy, mushroomy, woody, and leafy.

CASSIS

A classic descriptor for Cabernet Sauvignon, cassis is a type of black currant. If you haven't tried some lately
and your grocer doesn't have any, you can find some cassis liqueur at the liquor store. Buy some and smell it.
 Class 1: Before You Taste --
and See and Sniff

WHAT DO EXPERTS KNOW THAT NOVICES DON'T?

Tasting expertise comes in two forms:

Perceptual Expertise
This means observations based on your senses.
Cognitive Expertise
This means describing, comparing and evaluating wine based on
your knowledge.

Let's briefly consider each form of expertise.

PERCEPTUAL EXPERTISE
A Bowl of Memories
Saved corks are reminders of close
You might think that expert tasters have more acute senses than novices.
friends, long conversations, shared
In fact, experts do not have superior senses of smell or taste. meals and special occasions -- as well
as delicious wines. When your
An individual's ability to smell and taste is genetically preprogrammed. cognitive framework is suffering a bout
You're born with a certain number of taste buds and scent receptors -- and of memory loss, the corks can be a
you can't make them multiply. reminder of wines that you've enjoyed.

So how do experts gain a sensory advantage?

Experts have learned to "turn up the volume" on their existing tastebuds

and scent receptors so they can hear the messages more clearly.
The Big Vocabulary Caveat
Experts know
If we had a team of lawyers working in
our offices, they'd insist on including
 How their senses work on a biological level
this disclaimer:
 Which wine components trigger which senses
 How their senses respond to each component
 How to interpret those sensory responses Throughout this course, we've tried to
be very precise in using descriptors
even though many definitions are not
In one study, test subjects gained up to a tenfold increase in their ability to clear-cut. To do this, we've pared down
discriminate between different wines by really paying attention to their the vocabulary, which leaves out a
senses as they practiced tasting wine components and actual wines. number of terms (hopefully the less
commonly used ones).

If you have a favorite term that we've

left out or if you have a question about
a term that we haven't left out, please
email us at
COGNITIVE EXPERTISE
wss@[Link]

In addition to understanding their senses, experts have mastery over a few (that's shorthand for Wine Spectator
key areas: School)

Consistent tasting methodology to observe wines

Vocabulary to describe wines
 Framework to identify and remember wines
Read on to examine each of the key areas of cognitive expertise.

Consistent Methodology

Each time they taste, experts follow the exact same methodology to collect
wine cues. It's about as exciting to watch an expert taste through a flight of
wines as it is to watch paint dry.

The motions are the same for each wine: pick up glass > tilt > swirl > sniff
> sip > stop and consider > scribble a tasting note. Repeat.

Why this repetition? To get a valid basis for comparing and evaluating
wines, experts have learned to

 Give each wine the same opportunity to show its features Syrah Aromas and Flavors
 Use their senses in the same way to collect cues Characteristic flavors include raspberry,
 Look for all the same features in each wine blackberry, black pepper, violet, olive
and bacon. By learning the typical
For example, if you were buying a car, you'd compare cars by looking at aromas and flavors of Syrah, experts
the same features in each car: safety rating, reliability, gas mileage, stereo are more likely to recognize the varietal
and value. It wouldn't do much good to decide between them by looking at at a tasting.
the safety rating of one car and the stereo of another.

This methodology is briefly described in Class 1 and covered in depth in

Class 2.

Building your Framework

Vocabulary

Experts have a generally agreed-upon vocabulary with fairly precise

meanings for each word.

What Am I Tasting?
This means that experts can write tasting notes that can be understood by Here's a great way to build your
other experts and by novices. Experts and novices can regularly pick the framework and your vocabulary.
described wine out of a flight.
Every two weeks, Wine Spectator
Based on a tasting note written by novices, the likelihood of picking the Online posts a real tasting note, which
correct wine out of a lineup is no better than if it were picked completely is the basis for the challenging game
randomly. called, "What Am I Tasting?"

By reading the description carefully and

In this course, each class contains a fair amount of vocabulary and it is the paying attention to the clues it contains,
focus of Class 3. you can try to identify the correct
answers in four multiple-choice
categories: Variety, Country or Region
of Origin, Age and Appellation.

Framework Good luck!

Whatever their subject matter, experts know a lot. So you can play the newest version or
check out the archives, you'll also find
this link in the introductions to classes 2
Baseball authorities can quote the rulebook and recount historic plays. and 3.
Painters can tell you all about color interactions and composition.

Wine experts can tell you all about the

  Aromas and other characteristics associated with individual grape
varieties
Framework Trap
 Wine styles of famous (and not-so-famous) regions
On the other hand, frameworks can
 Various winemaking techniques and their effects on wine create expectations that influence
perceptions, even for experts. For
 Impact of climate and grapegrowing on wine instance, when pink food coloring was
added to a white wine, experts rated
the wine as sweeter. The novices still
All these details are organized into a framework that helps wine experts had to rely on their tongues and weren't
identify and remember wines. fooled.

For instance, after novices smell fresh-cut grass in a white wine, they'll
keep sniffing it looking for any other wine aroma.

Rather than searching the entire universe of wine aromas after nosing that
same wine, experts would guess that the wine might be Sauvignon Blanc.
Madeleine Memory
To confirm their impression, they'll look for the other aromas associated
"The smell and taste of
with Sauvignon Blanc as well as the varietal's refreshing acidity and things remain poised a long
complex finish. time, like souls, ready to
remind us..."
Tests have shown that a varietal framework can also help experts Marcel Proust
remember wines. Experts see wine as a cohesive whole rather than as a from Remembrance of
random collection of features. Things Past

When you are ready to proceed to the next module, click Module 2 on the
navigation bar at the top of this page.

Building Your Framework

Perhaps you have already begun to establish your framework. Or maybe you're ready to start building it.

Keeping a tasting journal can help. Try to write a tasting note for each wine that you drink (okay, for most wines
that you drink). You can find a link to all-purpose tasting journal forms in the Intro to this class.

Throughout this course, you'll find information about the most important varietals as well as key wine styles
and the impact of grapegrowing and winemaking techniques. Hopefully, you will continue to taste and study
long after you finish this course.

Marcel Proust
from Remembrance of Things Past

I feel that there is much to be said for the Celtic belief that the souls of those whom we have lost are held
captive in some inferior being, in an animal, in a plant, in some inanimate object, and so effectively lost to us
until the day (which to many never comes) when we happen to pass by the tree or to obtain possession of the
object which forms their prison. Then they start and tremble, they call us by our name, and as soon as we have
recognised their voice the spell is broken. We have delivered them: they have overcome death and return to
share our life.
And so it is with our own past. It is a labour in vain to attempt to recapture it: all the efforts of our intellect must
prove futile. The past is hidden somewhere outside the realm, beyond the reach of intellect, in some material
object (in the sensation which that material object will give us) which we do not suspect. And as for that object,
it depends on chance whether we come upon it or not before we ourselves must die.

Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was comprised in the theatre and the
drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me, when one day in winter, as I came home, my
mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and
then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent out for one of those short, plump little cakes called
'petites madeleines,' which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's shell. And
soon, mechanically, weary after a dull day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a
spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs
with it, touched my palate, a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary
changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with
no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters
innocuous, its brevity illusory--this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with
a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre,
accidental, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I was conscious that it was
connected with the taste of tea and cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be
of the same nature as theirs. Whence did it come? What did it signify? How could I seize upon and define it?

I drink a second mouthful, in which I find nothing more than in the first, a third, which gives me rather less than
the second. It is time to stop; the potion is losing its magic. It is plain that the object of my quest, the truth, lies
not in the cup but in myself. The tea has called up in me, but does not itself understand, and can only repeat
indefinitely with a gradual loss of strength, the same testimony; which I, too, cannot interpret, though I hope at
least to be able to call upon the tea for it again and to find it there presently, intact and at my disposal, for my
final enlightenment. I put down my cup and examine my own mind. It is for it to discover the truth. But how?
What an abyss of uncertainty whenever the mind feels that some part of it has strayed beyond its own borders;
when it, the seeker, is at once the dark region through which it must go seeking, where all its equipment will
avail it nothing. Seek? More than that: create. It is face to face with something which does not so far exist, to
which it alone can give reality and substance, which it alone can bring into the light of day.

And I begin again to ask myself what it could have been, this unremembered state which brought with it no
logical proof of its existence, but only the sense that it was a happy, that it was a real state in whose presence
other states of consciousness melted and vanished. I decide to attempt to make it reappear. I retrace my
thoughts to the moment at which I drank the first spoonful of tea. I find again the same state, illumined by no
fresh light. I compel my mind to make one further effort, to follow and recapture once again the fleeting
sensation. And that nothing may interrupt it in its course I shut out every obstacle, every extraneous idea, I
stop my ears and inhibit all attention to the sounds which come from the next room. And then, feeling that my
mind is growing fatigued without having any success to report, I compel it for a change to enjoy that distraction
which I have just denied it, to think of other things, to rest and refresh itself before the supreme attempt. And
then for the second time I clear an empty space in front of it. I place in position before my mind's eye the still
recent taste of that first mouthful, and I feel something start within me, something that leaves its resting-place
and attempts to rise, something that has been embedded like an anchor at a great depth; I do not know yet
what it is, but I can feel it mounting slowly; I can measure the resistance, I can hear the echo of great spaces
traversed.

Undoubtedly what is thus palpitating in the depths of my being must be the image, the visual memory which,
being linked to that taste, has tried to follow it into my conscious mind. But its struggles are too far off, too
much confused; scarcely can I perceive the colourless reflection in which are blended the uncapturable
whirling medley of radiant hues, and I cannot distinguish its form, cannot invite it, as the one possible
interpreter, to translate to me the evidence of its contemporary, its inseparable paramour, the taste of cake
soaked in tea; cannot ask it to inform me what special circumstance is in question, of what period in my past
life.

Will it ultimately reach the clear surface of my consciousness, this memory, this old, dead moment which the
magnetism of an identical moment has travelled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the very
depths of my being? I cannot tell. Now that I feel nothing, it has stopped, has perhaps gone down again into its
darkness, from which who can say whether it will ever rise? Ten times over I must essay the task, must lean
down over the abyss. And each time the natural laziness which deters us from every difficult enterprise, every
work of importance, has urged me to leave the thing alone, to drink my tea and to think merely of the worries of
to-day and of my hopes for to-morrow, which let themselves be pondered over without effort or distress of
mind.

And suddenly the memory returns. The taste was that of the little crumb of madeleine which on Sunday
mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before church-time), when I went to say
good day to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of real or of
lime-flower tea. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it; perhaps
because I had so often seen such things in the interval, without tasting them, on the trays in pastry-cooks'
windows, that their image had dissociated itself from those Combray days to take its place among others more
recent; perhaps because of those memories, so long abandoned and put out of mind, nothing now survived,
everything was scattered; the forms of things, including that of the little scallop-shell of pastry, so richly sensual
under its severe, religious folds, were either obliterated or had been so long dormant as to have lost the power
of expansion which would have allowed them to resume their place in my consciousness. But when from a
long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still,
alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and
taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment,
amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unfaltering, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the
vast structure of recollection.

And once I had recognized the taste of the crumb of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-flowers which
my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this
memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like
the scenery of a theatre to attach itself to the little pavilion, opening on to the garden, which had been built out
behind it for my parents (the isolated panel which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the
house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I was sent before luncheon, the
streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And just as the
Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little crumbs of paper
which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch themselves and
bend, take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, permanent and recognisable,
so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and
the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and of its
surroundings, taking their proper shapes and growing solid, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, all from
my cup of tea.