Want to Taste Wine Like the Pros? It's Simple - But It's Not Easy

Photo: Helena Lopes (via Pexels)

Whenever one talks about something that they do as their livelihood, they run the risk of appearing immodest; or conversely, overdoing it and piling on fake amounts of modesty.

I know that I write reasonably well, because I’ve been told that by other writers whom many consider to write very well. I know that I taste wine reasonably well, because I’ve been told that by others who are themselves excellent wine tasters. But I do not see the ability to combine those talents as somehow qualifying me to self-proclaim my awesomeness. And I do not see it as a skillset that's somehow unattainable by anyone else, either.

As any fan of the book Outliers can tell you, the one thing that most differentiates the well-skilled from the amateurs in any given field (including wine) is practice. If you spend enough time doing something (approaching 10,000 hours – and that figure is not hyperbole), the odds are very, very good that you will get very, very good at whatever it is that you are doing.

I write this because I continue to run into people (all over the world) who are thoroughly impressed with their own ability to taste (and then describe, verbally or in writing) a wine. On the other side of that wine appreciation coin, I also run into people (all over the world) who reinforce that view by assuming that they themselves could never accurately describe a wine’s tastes and aroma. I have a message for both of those types of people: “Get over it; what wine writing / reviewing peeps do isn’t all that special!”…

Look, I understand that being able to pay attention to a wine and accurately (and compellingly, and entertainingly) describe it to someone else takes effort. And it takes writing talent. But these are not special gifts about which anyone should overly-applaud themselves.

Think about it: if you can write well, then chances are you write a lot and were probably born with some aptitude for language . In my personal example, I may have the writing gift (that’s arguable, by the way!) but I’m also about 5’5” and even if I spent 10,000 hours playing basketball I will probably never be good enough to play as a pro. So just as I’m not ashamed of my inability to dribble a basketball, I’m not ecstatic over myself just because my brain was wired with a predilection towards stringing a few well-written sentences together. Yes, it takes hard work and dedication, but so does anything worth doing well.

As for the wine-tasting-ability portion of this equation: I’m constantly amazed at how many people tell me they could “never” pick out flavors and aromas in wine. It’s like they assume those of us who can write about wine have received some special Reiki attunement, or were visited by witchdoctors, or were born with something special about our noses (aside from its slightly-oversized capacity, in my case). And they assume that they in turn don’t have that ability and therefore could never acquire it. They have already determined it impossible in their minds before even trying it.

The irony, of course, is that it is not that difficult to acquire wine tasting skills. It just takes patience, a lot of focus, and a commitment to taste wines (a very large number, at that). That’s it. It’s really that simple, and there really are no shortcuts (but also very few barriers). There are simply very few reasons there for someone to pull a muscle patting themselves on their back for their awesomeness – and little to fear for those who think that wine tasting skills are somehow unattainable.

And let’s not even get started on the relative importance of what we do in communicating wine to people; last time that I checked, we are helping people out, for sure, but we are certainly not saving lives by doing so!

So please, spare the world any of your wine-tasting egos. In fact, banish that wine-tasting ego totally, and free up some time and energy for sharing your wine experiences and helping others get more involved in loving wine – it’s more fun, and will fill up your soul with more joy than waxing philosophic about your own tasting abilities ever could.

And if you’re one of the folks who wants to get your head into describing wine but have felt as though it seemed impossible: remember that walking, talking, cutting paper with scissors, and properly writing a lower-case letter “m” seemed impossible to you at one point or another in your life. In the words of Nike, the goddess of competition and oddly-shaped sneakers: just do it!

Cheers!

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