Can You Improve Your Wine Tasting Skills or Are You Just Born With It?

We all know expert-level wine tasting is a talent, but is it innate, or can anyone train their taste buds to detect the subtle nuances in a glass?

Improving your wine tasting skills might seem like a mystical endeavor reserved for Master Sommeliers (or the French). It can certainly feel overwhelming to step into this world as a novice, especially if common wine descriptors like “velvety mouthfeel,” “firm tannins,” and “flinty minerality” sound foreign to you. For anyone not used to analyzing everything they taste—which is most of us—typical wine-tasting notes sound alien, to say the least.

“Developing a refined palate involves analyzing and articulating what you perceive visually, as well as through the wine’s aroma and taste,” says Thomas Brenner, sommelier and director of food and beverage at Silver Creek Valley Country Club in San Jose, California. “It involves some education, some research, and lots of tasting.”

Just as with anything you want to get better at, experience and deliberate, intentional time will yield results. From sharpening your sense of smell to understanding various wine regions and grapes, honing your wine tasting skills is all about learning a language. 

Whether you're a casual enthusiast or an aspiring expert, this guide will help you understand the science and techniques behind improving your wine tasting abilities. 

The science of taste

With wine tasting, or really when it comes to tasting anything, it’s useful to understand how the sense of taste actually works within the body. Scientists describe taste as your tongue’s nerve cells having a sensory reaction to the different chemicals in food, but it’s important to note that taste doesn’t only happen in the mouth. Your sense of smell is crucial to the way you taste. 

“The olfactory system is key to the perception of flavors,” says Dr. Soma Mandal, a board-certified internist practicing at Summit Health in New Providence, NJ. “When we consume food or drink, volatile compounds are released, which travel up to the olfactory receptors in the nasal cavity. This process is known as retronasal olfaction.”

Your papillae, or the bumps on your tongue that hold your taste buds, have small openings called taste pores that are filled with fluid, which detect and analyze the chemicals in food that allow the tongue to discern the five basic tastes—sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and savory/umami. 

“In the case of wine,” Dr. Mandal says, “volatile compounds [also] interact with the olfactory receptors and are interpreted by the brain. This interaction allows us to distinguish between the various aromatic compounds, leading to the rich and diverse flavor profiles that we experience with different wines.”

Think about it this way: while the tongue allows you to detect the five basic tastes, “smell provides a much more complex and nuanced detection of flavors,” says Dr. Mandal.

Common wine flavors

While there are countless wines in the world, the flavors they evoke can be categorized. While these categories and characteristics are not set in stone and can vary depending on a number of factors, here are some of the most common flavor notes in wines, to help get you set up for wine-tasting success.

Fruity

Typical fruit notes for red wines include cherry, raspberry, blackberry, plum, blackcurrant, and strawberry. Green apple, pear, citrus, peach, apricot, melon, and tropical fruits are typical fruit flavors found in whites.

Floral

In red wines with a floral character, you may detect notes of rose, violet, or lavender. In white wines, aromas like honeysuckle, jasmine, elderflower, or orange blossom are more common.

Earthy

An earthy red might contain notes of mushroom, truffle, forest floor (damp earth), or leather, while white wines may have flavors like wet stone, chalk, or gravel. 

Spicy

Wines referred to as “spicy” often have a little bite on the finish. Think black or white pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, or clove for reds, as well as ginger, allspice, or sometimes white pepper for whites.

Herbal

Herbal notes occur in both reds and whites. For reds, tobacco, cedar, and eucalyptus can be found, among others; whites tend more towards fresh herbal notes like cut grass, fennel fronds, or thyme.

What are the key signs to determine the quality or age of a wine?

How much you like a wine is largely subjective; you may hate sweet wines, for example, but that doesn’t mean the Sauternes someone poured you isn’t a good wine. In a sense, yumminess may be up for debate, but the quality of the wine can, indeed, be measured. 

In her classic book The Wine Bible, Karen MacNeil states that a wine’s taste and its potential for greatness are made up of twelve key attributes: balance (how all the attributes come together), precision, aliveness, complexity, shape and direction, choreography (the way the flavors unfold), length, connectedness, capacity to age, ability to evoke an emotional response, going beyond fruitiness, and distinctiveness. 

That’s a lot to contemplate. For those newer to the wine world, here are some of the more accessible or easily perceived traits.

Length/finish

“The quality of a wine is often indicated by the length of its finish,” says Brenner. “The longer the flavor lingers on your palate, the higher the quality (it is sometimes thought.)”

Balance

Another way of thinking about a wine’s balance is its “equilibrium,” writes MacNeil. Essentially, no one flavor or component should jump out at you in a striking way, instead, the wine should be coordinated and well-connected. 

“A well-crafted wine will have a harmonious balance of fruit, tannins, alcohol, and acidity,” says Brenner. “If a wine is too hot (too much alcohol), too acidic, or gritty, it’s likely unbalanced and not well made.”

Capacity to age

“A wine that’s balanced when young becomes integrated when old. That is, its components and flavors have coalesced. They no longer stand separately,” writes MacNeil. “The flavors of the wine are now a synthesis of the independent parts, plus the magical element of time.” This is hard to predict, obviously, for anyone new to the world of wine; try sipping a good, older wine to get a sense of what she means.

What can inhibit your wine tasting ability?

Age

“As we age, the number of taste buds can decrease, and the remaining taste buds can become less sensitive, leading to a diminished sense of taste,” says Dr. Mandal.

Ability to smell

“Proper airflow through the nasal passages is essential for effective olfaction,” says Dr. Mandal. “Conditions such as nasal congestion, sinusitis, or structural abnormalities like a deviated septum can hinder airflow, reducing the amount of odorant molecules reaching the olfactory receptors.”

 Certain medical conditions

There are a number of medical conditions that can alter or inhibit your smell and tasting abilities, including allergies, upper respiratory infections, dental issues/poor oral health, nutritional deficiencies (lacking certain vitamins can impair your senses), smoking (which damages olfactory receptors), and diabetes; also Covid-19 has proved to damage some people’s abilities to taste and smell, sometimes for months.

Tips for enhancing your wine tasting abilities

Just as becoming a better writer involves months or years of writing, or as improving your muscle strength takes consistent weight lifting, becoming a better taster involves experiencing lots of wines. Here are some tips to make that time well spent.

Learn some common wine vocabulary

Knowing proper terminology can help you pinpoint what it is you’re tasting, and in turn, make you a better taster. “Though it may seem challenging at first, adjectives and descriptors can help us attribute a profile to what a wine exudes,” says Brenner.

Though we’ve covered some of this terminology, here are a few common terms for wine tasting to reference:

• Minerally/minerality: Think crushed rocks, chalk, or the saline character of ocean water
• Earthy: Think mushrooms or dirt
• Buttery: Creamy, or actually buttery (the compound diacetyl, a byproduct of malolactic fermentation in wine, is exactly the compound once used for “butter” flavored popcorn)
• Dry: This means that the wine is not sweet
• Tannic: Tannins, naturally occurring compounds found primarily in red wines, can make a wine taste astringent, bitter, or dry in your mouth
• Bright: Crisp, high acidity; think lemonade or other citrus juices
• Vegetal: Aromas or flavors of grass, asparagus, or green vegetables
• Spicy: This characteristic is usually present on the finish; think black pepper or cinnamon
• Mouthfeel: How the wine coats your mouth: dry, smooth, creamy, velvety, etc.
• Oaky: Oak barrels, particularly the first time they are used, can impart vanilla, nut, caramel, or even smoky flavors (due to the barrel being charred on the inside)
• Light-bodied: A wine that feels light and delicate on the palate, usually lower in alcohol and higher in acidity 
• Full-bodied: A wine with a richer, more robust mouthfeel and often a higher alcohol content reds from warm climates, where the grapes become riper, are typical examples

 Learn about wine regions and grape varieties

“Understanding the basics of major wine-growing regions and their classic grape varieties is crucial,” says Brenner. “Recognizing the impact of climate, proximity to water, and vineyard altitude on a wine’s characteristics can significantly enhance your tasting skills. The slope, aspect, soil, and hemisphere are all vital components that contribute to the unique expressions of each grape and the resulting wine.”

Start smelling stuff

Smell is one of the key components of taste, so start paying attention to the way various objects smell: leather, an old book, fresh-cut grass, the way pavement smells after a rainstorm.

Feel the texture

Smell and taste get more attention, but wine tasting also includes tactile feelings, also referred to as mouthfeel. Wines have texture, like fabrics. 

“A wine can be as soft as flannel (an Australian Shiraz, for example), as seamlessly smooth as silk (a Pinot Noir), or kind of rough like wool (some southern French reds feel this way),” writes MacNeil. “It can also feel syrupy, gritty, [or] crackling crisp.”

Practice good health

Having a healthy lifestyle can support your olfactory system, which will help improve your tasting abilities. “Maintaining a healthy diet, staying hydrated, and avoiding smoking can support both taste and smell,” says Dr. Mandal.

Drink, share, and discuss

“Tasting wine with others and sharing your impressions will help refine your palate,” says Brenner. “Engaging with like-minded wine enthusiasts in this collaborative way can deepen your understanding of the nuanced world of wine.”

In other words, the fastest and simplest way to improve your wine tasting skills is to try lots of wine, think about what you are tasting, take notes, and then try some more. And then even more. We’re not advocating anyone down a bottle a day, but rather, taking intentional time to sip a wine slowly. Engage with it, study it, and take in the complete sensory experience of the wine’s aromas, flavors, and textures. It will not only enhance your wine tasting ability, but it will also make your appreciation of the wine in your glass that much more profound.