‘One tastes better with an empty stomach (…) a serious tasting should preferably start in the morning, before lunch. (…) Coffee before the tasting is not recommended. (…) Eating during the session is out of the question. (…) Bread is less dangerous due to its lighter taste, but remains undesirable.’
And on they go about the right place (kitchen), light (daylight), colours (white, walls too), odour (none whatsoever) and sound (talking is allowed during ‘designated moments’ only, no music, no other noises). Needless to say swallowing is prohibited and the spittoon should not contain sawdust (odour!).
Not an event to invite one’s friends to.
Some of these prohibitions are quite understandable. One cannot taste
next to someone smoking a cigar or exuding whiffs of Chanel No. 5. Not to
swallow the wine is good advice and not only because of that empty stomach. And
people talking can be a nuisance (‘Have you tasted that red one, nr. 7, no, nr.
8, yet? Oh, you’re still doing the whites? Well, I thought this one to have way
more tannins than the last one and that’s odd, as…’). One needs to concentrate.
Music not only undermines your ability to concentrate but also
interferes with other sensory perceptions. It may even cause irritation and
lead to a negative judgement, Leenaers and Holtzappel argue.
Prof. Adrian C. North goes one step further. In his ‘The Effect of Background Music on the Taste of Wine’ (2011, on which I stumbled via an
article in the WSJ) he shows that students rated a wine more Zingy/Fresh while
listening to Zingy/Fresh music and more Mellow/Soft if listening to Mellow/Soft
music.
So a glass of Beaujolais Nouveau with Nirvana in my ears would taste
like an oak-barrelled Australian monster, I guess. But would it to everyone? You
may want to be careful if you think you have just found a way to upgrade your
lesser-quality wines. According to North ‘music can only be an effective
influence on perception to the extent that its communicative intent is
understood by participants’. That means that an average, OK wine tasted to the
sound of Byrd’s ‘Mass for Five Voices’ would be rated ‘rather dull’ by someone
who is more into symphonic music and ‘subtle, refined’ by an admirer of so-called
early music.
But then it is not just music that influences one’s appreciation of a wine.
In March this year I was offered a Pinot Grigio with a Vitello Tonato (see my A Perfect Wine List). Though it paired all right with the
Vitello, I thought not much of it. Last month I was poured the same wine. Same
restaurant, same company, same ‘after a day of hard work’, but this time it was
a gorgeous summer evening and we were sitting outside. The Pinot Grigio turned
out to be an almost frivolous, zesty wine with a fresh-fruity nose.
Leenaers and Holtzappel do have a point—for the
professional taster, that is.
