EDUCATED PALATE Blind tasting is a key component of achieving master-level wine knowledge. This method breaks it down in a novel way.
Illustration: Daniel Diosdado
WHEN PEOPLE ASK ME how they can increase their wine knowledge, it’s often because they want to buy wine with greater confidence. To become an all-out wine nerd, however—conversant in the names of esoteric grapes and little-known regions, able to identify wines in a blind tasting by their acid or tannin structure—is to aspire to an entirely different level of education. That’s what Nick Jackson hopes to teach readers of his recently published book, “Beyond Flavour.” With so many drinkers isolated at home, this might be the ideal opportunity to try his theories out.
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Mr. Jackson, a New York-based independent wine adviser who consults for Sotheby’s Wine, self-published “Beyond Flavour” (immodestly subtitled “The Indispensable Handbook to Blind Wine Tasting”) a few months ago and has been pleasantly surprised by its word-of-mouth success. Although Mr. Jackson wrote the book for a “niche audience” of fellow wine professionals, he’s found that many amateurs are equally interested.
The ability to taste and recognize wines whose identities have been concealed is considered a skill any top wine professional should possess; it’s also a crucial test component in earning the title Master of Wine, a certification granted by the London-based Institute of Masters of Wine that takes years to achieve. There are fewer than 400 Masters of Wine in the world. Mr. Jackson is one of them.
“ I’d never thought of the structure of Chenin Blanc as ‘crescendo-shaped.’ ”
When I first met Mr. Jackson at Sotheby’s New York headquarters, on the city’s Upper East Side, seven years ago, he was the coach of the Yale Law School wine team and the wine buyer at Sotheby’s Wine. The team was preparing for the Left Bank Bordeaux Cup, a competition wherein students from all over the world are judged on their knowledge of Bordeaux—with a blind tasting component, of course.
In the forward to his book Mr. Jackson describes how, once upon a time, he blind-tasted wines by considering their aromas and flavors before making an educated guess as to the grape variety and region of origin—the conventional method. But he found that way too often unreliable. Mr. Jackson’s “lightbulb moment” came when he began to consider white wines in terms of their “acid structure;” he already considered red wines’ “tannin structure.” From that point on, he said, he identified wines much more accurately.
His descriptions are certainly novel. For example, I’d never thought of the acid structure of Chenin Blanc as “crescendo-shaped,” nor have I ever described the tannin structure of Cabernet Sauvignon to be “very linear with a strong sense of direction.” According to Mr. Jackson, Syrah feels like “a knot of tannin on the tongue, tightly coiled.” I wondered if non-pros could be taught to consider wine in such terms and thus able to identify wines in a blind tasting.
I asked Mr. Jackson if he would be game to put his methodology to the test in a blind tasting for amateurs. He quickly agreed and even suggested staging it at Sotheby’s headquarters in New York. (This was in late February, before social distancing became the rule.) Mr. Jackson sent an email to his former Sotheby’s colleagues, who responded with alacrity. We had 40 tasters in minutes.
Mr. Jackson chose four wines. (The Wall Street Journal paid for all bottles.) There were two reds and two whites, and the quiz offered 10 possible descriptions for tasters to choose from—five for the red wines and five for the white. Test participants were assembled in four groups of 10 and asked to taste each wine and match it with one of the descriptions.
The characterization of the white wines seemed pretty complicated to me. For example: “The acidity acts as a backbone to the wine. It feels like a vertical steel pole through the wine.” Or, “The acidity is linear; it begins the moment the wine hits the palate and continues steady, firm and consistent throughout without peaks or troughs.” The descriptions of the reds were comparatively simple: “The tannins are light and silky;” “The tannins are velvety and felt on the tongue.” (Mr. Jackson did say red wines are generally easier to describe and identify blind.)
The tasters were an almost even mix of men and women from various departments, including Impressionist art, books, manuscripts, watches, marketing and evaluations. They were an enthusiastic group of wine lovers—and drinkers. Just two people spit during the tasting; everyone else swallowed their small tastes of wine.
Before they tasted the wines, Mr. Jackson described what he meant by acidity and tannin. Acidity gives “that zesty, refreshing feeling,” he noted, while tannin is “what dries your mouth out after you swallow a red wine. Concentrate on where you feel the tannins.” I thought this description particularly good: “Tannins give the impression of being solids in a sea of liquid.” Mr. Jackson also exhorted the participants to be attentive. “The act of tasting has to be deliberate,” he said.
After everyone had tasted the wines and turned in their answers, Sotheby’s associate wine adviser Yassmin Dever tabulated the responses. She found that the tasters had accurately paired the red wines with the right descriptors more often than the whites—no surprise to Mr. Jackson. “I think people understand the texture of red wine. It’s almost like biology,” he said. “The concept of acidity in white wine is more abstract, it’s harder to identify.”
Just one person matched all of the wines and the descriptors accurately. (Not me: I got three of the four.) The tasting prodigy was Zachary Evans, Sotheby’s assistant corporate controller. When Mr. Jackson later asked Mr. Evans how he managed to get all four right, Mr. Evans modestly attributed his accomplishment to talking with the employees of Sotheby’s Wine over the years and attending tastings from time to time.
That made developing an expertise in blind tasting sound pretty simple: Cultivate an interest in wine over time, talk with wine pros, attend tastings. That last one, normally easy to implement, will have to wait until we’re no longer social distancing. In the meantime, you could get a copy of ”Beyond Flavour” and practice blind tasting on your own. Even if you confuse a wine whose acidity has a “crescendo” with one Mr. Jackson compares to “a roller coaster,” as I did, the method is instructive and good quarantine fun.
TRY THIS AT HOME
The wines from our Sotheby’s tasting, matched to Mr. Jackson’s descriptions.
- 2018 Brendan Stater-West Saumur Blanc $33 : “The acidity is like a crescendo; you don’t feel it at the beginning, but it grows and grows until it is felt very strongly on the finish, after swallowing.”
- 2016 Sotheby’s Chablis Enchère $22: “The acidity is linear; it begins the moment the wine hits the palate and it continues steady, firm and consistent throughout with peaks or troughs.”
- 2017 Sotheby’s Langhe Nebbiolo $25: “The tannins have a grainy, slightly astringent texture and are felt on the gums.”
- 2014 CVNE Rioja Reserva $25: “The tannins are felt in the cheeks and have a chalky texture.”
Write to Lettie Teague at wine@wsj.com
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