A Guide to Establishing Your Wine Palate
In order to develop a taste for wine, keep tasting — and write down as many specifics as you can when you find a wine you like. Red wine or white wine? What grape? Which wine region? And so on, so that eventually you can work out the qualities that you’re looking for in any wine.
Without trying to sound geeky or snooty, but it’s not very useful to try to describe the types of wines you like in such general terms as mild, nonsweet, dry, etc. Commonly, people may say they prefer dry wines, but what they might really mean is they like off-dry wines. Or sometimes they may be served a wine that is technically dry and they find it too sweet. So it is more helpful to isolate certain can’t-miss characteristics that speak to what you know you enjoy.
You can start with red wine or white wine. When starting out, inexperienced wine drinkers will normally prefer either red or white. Next, think about what type of meals you enjoy. Sometimes, the challenge of food matching can be a considerable influence on whether you like wine or not. It doesn’t have to be complicated and experimenting is normal, but some times, things just don’t work. If you really like hamburgers and only drink sweet white wines, that’s going to be a challenge.
And what about the price? It’s difficult to find wines that are more than just quaffable if your spending limit is less than $8 a bottle. If your interested in more rare wines and flavours, try wines from small wineries but note these are likely to be more costly than the mass-produced varieties.
Once you find a wine you really like, it may be helpful to write down the vintage and name of the wine for future record. If you can indicate just one specific wine that you truly like, it provides a starting point for your wine adviser, whether that person is a columnist, a friend, a sommelier or a retailer.
Last but definitely not least, maintain a spirit of adventure. Understand that there will be some disappointing wines you’ll come across regardless of how many you drink or your knowledge of wine. Focus on the successes, identify everything about them that you like, and you improve your percentage of winners immensely.