The Independent Palate
Part 3 - Drinking wine

Label Led Palates

There is a point where price suspends judgement.

Pètrus at $700 per bottle has to taste better than Pichon Lalande at $80. Beyond a certain level of price and reputation it is almost impossible to taste the wine for the hype. Thus, the quality of Chateau d'Yquem, the First Growth Clarets, Chateau PÈtrus and the wines of the Domaine de la RomanÈe Conti can't be questioned - either they are fantastic or you, the purchaser, are an idiot.

Lunching with Phillipe Bourguignon, who choose our Burgundies for us, at his home near Paris last year, we were served PÈtrus 1978 followed by La Mouline 1978 (the great Cote Roti from Guigal). Talking about it later I remarked how much I had liked the PÈtrus, Phillipe politely intimated that he thought the La Mouline, costing about a quarter as much, was better - he was right.

At a more realistic level its very hard to admit that the case of trendy Pinot Noir you've just invested a week's wages in is made from fruit so overripe that it seems more like chutney than wine. We all make mistakes, it is just unfortunate that wine errors are so damnably expensive. Wine drinkers must develop a stoic indifference to throwing money away.

The trade has a tremendous advantage here, they don't have to pay for most of the wine they taste and can thus develop a palate far beyond their pocket. They also have the opportunity and are indeed forced to taste a huge amount of wine just to keep up with current trends. A private consumer cannot compete in these stakes, unless he is excessively rich and doesn't value his health.

Succumbing to the influences of cost and reputation is known as 'drinking labels' and no one is immune. I have seen a most respected figure in the wine world "Oohing" and "Aahing" over a well labelled wine that was completely oxidised. Perhaps it was just that time in the evening.

Drinking Companions

The inescapable fact is that drinking wine is both a social and subjective experience. It is tied to the wine's changing tastes as it reacts with the flavours of the food you are eating, the emotional interaction between you and your fellow drinkers and the effect of alcohol upon your system. Therefore, the choice of drinking companions can be as important as the choice of wine.

I cannot state too strongly how much your emotional state influences your ability to taste, there may be some palates that retain their integrity through waiter rudeness, cigar smoking neighbours, critical fellow diners or marital quarrels, but they are few.

The right company can make good wines sublime, while the wrong turns them to vinegar faster than you can say Jimmy Watson Trophy. It is hardly surprising that the most enjoyable wine experiences are not at situations where expectations are too high and the social experience to overwhelming, e.g. great wine dinners, but amongst friends where good fellowship outweighs social posturing.

Winesmanship

A common way to attempt to avoid the lure of the label is to present the wine masked i.e. without the label being visible. This is an important part of acquiring wine knowledge but it can be used as a flamboyant gesture, a trick, or a way of passing off an inferior bottle. Stephen Potter would have found fertile ground for a small volume entitled Winesmanship, the art of controlling blind tastings without actually cheating.

There are two simple ways of altering the taste of a masked bottle. One is with psychological warfare, for example, allow a glimpse the wrong bottle, or drop deliberately misleading hints. As the recipient of these subterfuges it is amazing what you can talk yourself into - I have found myself firmly believing, having being primed with enough winks and nods to confuse me, if not the proverbial blind horse, that I was drinking a fine old Claret only to discover that it was an "extremely interesting" Chilean wine.

The other method is to control the tastes that precede it - follow a sauternes with a soft old red and you'll never taste the red. Food is great for this. For example, cheese kills even the most powerful wine while the fresh acidity of an apple refreshes the palate and highlights the wine exposing any faults it may have. Hence the old saying "Buy on apple sell on cheese."

After all the hoopla about wine and food it comes as a bit of a shock to realise that the major food hits (chilli, chocolate, citrus, cheese etc.) are anti wine. Maybe this is why the majority of wine lovers are as catholic in their food tastes as vegetarians. You can be quite adventurous with the food that accompanies wine. For example we often drink good Burgundies with quite extreme Chinese food. Try it, if it doesn't work eat the food then drink the wine.

The Mechanics of tasting

To taste wine you should smell it first. We tend to ignore the importance of smell but with wine it is important. The 'nose' tells you more about the wine than its actual taste.

First, without spilling it, swill the wine firmly around in the glass to release its aromas, put your nose well into the glass and inhale deeply. *Tip: keep your nose clear of the wine! Concentrate on the wine's odours - are there any unpleasant 'off' characteristics, do you smell fruit, or the fresh vanilla aroma of new oak, does it smell excessively tannic, and so on?

Next, take a mouthful of wine and keeping it in your mouth, suck air through it and 'chew' on the wine, i.e. with the wine in the front of your mouth suck the aerated wine, over and around your tongue, with a chewing motion, and the appropriate sound effects of course. This is done because your taste buds are located in the front of your tongue and aerating the wine releases its layers of flavour.

Finally, spit out the wine. N.B. In the case of an exceptional wine you can always omit this last step.

It is possible that this isn't ideal dinner party behaviour, and the sounds that accompany the performance certainly aren't. However, it is the way to 'taste' wine and if you are really trying to assess a wine, "there is", as Margaret Thatcher would have said, "no alternative".

The Independent Palate

Given all this, how do you know when a wine is 'Good'?

As discussed above, preconceived notions upset our instinctive appreciation of a wine. You don't have to be a great expert to realise that if two of you have gulped down a bottle of wine in thirty minutes then it wasn't too bad. Conversely if the bottle is still unfinished after an hour and a half then its quality may be inferior to the excuses you are making for it.

This, the level test, is an excellent indicator of a wine's quality with, of course, the usual allowances being made about how desperate you are for a drink.

Approach the wine openly, trust yourself. Ignore its price, ignore the string of medals that adorn the label and ignore the remarks of others. On this occasion, you and are the one whose opinion matters most. If you like it drink it, if you don't then leave it. After all, wine should be a pleasure not a punishment.

In brief, take the pundits advice in moderation with as much wine as required and, though you won't become an instant expert, you will be on the way to acquiring an independent palate.