A step-by-step guide to a lifelong journey
Gloria Maroti Frazee
Issue: October 31, 2005
THERE ARE REALLY ONLY THREE DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO TASTING WINE.
FIRST is the path of the hedonist. You find a wine you like and share it with good company over a delicious meal. This is romance. This is pleasure. This is simple enjoyment. If you're reading this, you're probably a hedonist already.
SECOND is the path of the expert. You examine a wine. You identify, describe and evaluate its features and then you relate them back to their origins. This is science. This is a lot of work. This requires years of study.
THIRD is the path of the connoisseur. You look to wine for both pleasure and knowledge. This path is no easier to travel than the expert's path, but it doesn't lead to snobbery or pretension. It embodies true appreciation. You train your palate and your brain as you enjoy each sip.
Does this sound overly schematic? Maybe that's an occupational hazard. I am Wine Spectator's director of education, and it's my job to make complex subjects accessible without oversimplifying or omitting any of the fundamentals.
It's my belief—reinforced by my experience with thousands of students who have taken classes at Wine Spectator School—that the third approach can help novices become better tasters and can help experienced tasters find more nuances in each glass. After you've mastered the information on these pages, visit www.wine spectatorschool.com for a free tasting guide.
TASTING WINE
Wine tasting Involves four activities:
Observing:
Using your senses to perceive, identify and measure stimuli.
Describing:
Using your vocabulary to reveal the wine's features.
Comparing:
Recalling similar wine types to use as benchmarks.
Evaluating:
Synthesizing all the information to judge wine quality.
You might think expert tasters have senses that are more acute. They're always talking about hints of this and nuances of that, while the rest of us are drawing blanks. In fact, experts do not have superior senses. We're all born with a fixed number of taste buds and scent receptors, and there's no way to make them multiply. Some people are born "supertasters," with lots of taste buds, but most experts are not so endowed—they have trained themselves to be more aware of the sensory messages they receive (see "Tasters and Supertasters"). You, too, can increase your ability to discriminate among wines by learning how your senses work and by paying close attention to them while tasting.
In addition to relying on their senses, wine experts must also learn all there is to know about tasting. They achieve mastery as tasters by developing a methodology, a vocabulary and a framework with which to evaluate, describe and categorize wine.
Let's examine how this knowledge is applied in practice.
TASTING METHODOLOGY
Watching an expert taste through a flight of wines is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Lift glass, tilt and look. Swirl and sniff. Sip and swish. Pause. Spit. Sniff, sip and spit again. Scribble a tasting note. Repeat with the next wine.
The simple and repetitive motions resemble those of a worker on an assembly line. Why this repetition? If you were choosing between two computers, you'd compare gigabytes with gigabytes. When you examine two wines, you also need to compare like features: Color should be compared with color, body with body, finish with finish, and so on. The repetitive steps help you collect the same type of information for each wine.
If you watch very closely as the expert tastes through the flight, you'll notice a few additional points:
There are four senses used. Vision, smell, taste and touch are all affected by wine. Expert tasting methodology, which can be shortened to see → sniff → sip → summarize, reminds you to use each of these senses, as well as your brain.
There's a lot of swirling. Before a wine is swirled, its aromas are trapped in the liquid, making them difficult to discern. By swirling the wine, you're increasing its surface area, which increases alcohol evaporation. The evaporating alcohol carries aromas into the air, where your nose picks them up. Since scents account for about 75 percent of a wine's character and quality, focusing on your sense of smell is essential.
There's a lot of swishing. Swishing wine around in your mouth serves two important purposes. First, it brings the wine into contact with all your taste buds, which are dispersed throughout your tongue, soft palate and throat. Second, swishing wine in your mouth is like swirling wine in your glass; the evaporating alcohol carries scents into the nasal passages that connect your nose and mouth. Scents picked up via your mouth are referred to as flavors, while those that enter the retronasal passages via your nose are aromas. So you can actually smell wine when it's in your mouth.
There's a lot of spitting. What's the quickest way to tell an expert taster from a beginner? The expert spits. This keeps the brain fog-free, so that each wine can be properly appreciated. Before attending that walk-around tasting, practice spitting into the kitchen sink.
There's a pause after the first sip. Pausing for 15 seconds, or a few breaths, gives you time to form an overall image of the wine. This keeps you from missing the forest for the trees. It also aids in recall. Think of this step as the gestalt of wine or the Zen of tasting.
There's nothing written after the first sip. As you sniff and sip, your brain is in sensory mode. As soon as you start verbalizing your impressions, your brain switches into intellectual mode, making it difficult to detect additional stimuli.
There's no talking. Suggestions often influence perception. When a fellow taster describes a wine as tannic before you've formed your own opinion, you are much more likely to experience the wine as being tannic.
To learn more about the steps that experts use in tasting and the evaluation questions to ask at each step, see the "Expert Tasting Methodology".
VOCABULARY AND FRAMEWORK
It's not easy to translate sensory experiences into words, but experts share a generally agreed-upon vocabulary with fairly precise meanings for each term. If a tasting note is written by an expert, most people, including novices, can pick the particular wine out of a flight. But when a note is written by a beginner, the likelihood of identifying the correct wine is no greater than if the wine were picked randomly.
To build your vocabulary, read Wine Spectator's tasting notes carefully. Pay attention to the terms that are used, to how they function and to the features they describe.
After you taste and describe a wine, it's time to put it into context. Like the art historian who can point to paintings that exemplify specific styles of art, the wine expert can describe benchmark wines. An expert can also tell you the characteristics associated with individual grape varieties, the wine styles of famous (and not-so-famous) growing areas and the effects that various grapegrowing and winemaking techniques can have on a given wine.
That's a lot of detail to file away. Most experts organize all the bits of information into a framework based on grape variety. This framework provides a context that helps with wine identification.
For example, suppose we pull the cork on a bottle for a blind tasting and pour one glass for a novice taster and another for an expert. Each immediately detects the pungent aroma of freshly cut grass. The novice keeps sniffing, searching for other scents found in the universe of wine aromas. In contrast, the expert knows that freshly cut grass is a classic descriptor for Sauvignon Blanc. This narrows the search down to the short list of aromas associated with that varietal. If some of these characteristic aromas are present, the expert quickly identifies the wine.
The context provided by this varietal framework also helps with wine recall. Drawing an analogy from chess—another pursuit whose mastery depends upon a base of knowledge—one study found that chess masters could reliably remember the locations of the playing pieces at each step in a match. The recall of novice players was much less reliable. The difference in recall wasn't because the masters had good memories and the novices poor ones. Rather, the masters could see the relationships between the pieces on the board, or, in other words, the context for their positions. This helped the masters remember each play.
Remembering the wines you've tasted in the past provides a context that helps you identify or evaluate the wine you are currently tasting. It's amazing to hear an expert compare wines they've sampled on different occasions, sometimes decades apart.
EVALUATING WINE
Individuals sometimes perceive differing aromas and tastes in the same wine. This can be attributed to two concepts related to perception: sensory thresholds and individual variation.
Let's examine thresholds first. Before we can sense an aroma, flavor or taste, it must be present in sufficient concentration. This could be expressed in parts per thousand or even parts per million, depending on the chemical component.
Here are the key thresholds:
Absolute: If the concentration is below the absolute, or sensory, threshold, the stimulus—whether it's an aroma, flavor, taste or mouthfeel—is undetectable to most people.
Recognition: At the recognition threshold, most people can identify the stimulus.
Difference: After a stimulus has reached the recognition threshold, the difference threshold is the amount required for most people to distinguish between less- and more-concentrated solutions of that stimulus.
You'll notice that "most people" is repeatedly emphasized. This is where individual variation comes in. Each person has a specific threshold for each of the hundreds of aromas and flavors that exist in wine, as well as each of the five tastes. This means that an individual's complete set of thresholds is unique, like a fingerprint.
A number of factors contribute to individual variations in sensation and perception. As you already know, the number of aroma and taste receptors is key. Another big factor is your saliva production rate, since saliva carries wine to your taste buds (ever thought you'd be concerned about your saliva production rate?). Age is important too; your senses become less acute and your memory declines as you grow older.
Gender also plays a role in perception. For the most part, women tend to have more acute senses of smell and taste. Interestingly, some studies have also shown that women are particularly adept at perceiving food and floral aromas, while men are better with aromas such as petroleum.
Your hunger level can make a difference, too. Ever notice that your senses of smell and taste are heightened when you're hungry? It's a good idea to evaluate wine right before a meal.
Finally, experience counts. Take a moment to recall the scent of a peach, an aroma found in some white wines. Narrow it down a bit and think of a ripe peach. Are you remembering the delicate scent of a peach ripened on a supermarket shelf? Or is it an extremely aromatic, tree-ripened peach from the farmers' market? Your recollection of "ripe peach" is influenced by your experiences.
Because our preferences are determined by our experiences and sensory thresholds, as well as a host of other factors, it's understandable that each individual has a unique set of wine and food preferences. When it comes to dressing a hamburger, you might douse it with ketchup, while your friend might reach for the mustard. One condiment isn't better than the other—you simply have different preferences.
When it comes to wine, some people enjoy the vanilla and spice flavors added by new oak; others don't. Some people prefer lighter, crisper styles; others go for bigger, more powerful ones. Identifying your favorite wine styles comes down to trusting your palate.
QUALITY PARAMETERS
Wine scores reflect wine quality, which is judged using the objective parameters described below. Be aware, however, that parameters change over time. The ancient Romans liked to supplement their wine with resin, fish sauce and other flavoring agents that we would consider bizarre and unpalatable.
Here are the key quality parameters:
Balance: A wine is balanced when the fruit and all the other components are in harmony. The main idea is that no single element overwhelms the rest. For example, it's fine if a wine's aromas include vanilla, but if the only aroma is vanilla, the wine isn't well-balanced.
Complexity: A complex wine has many aromas and flavors. It is layered and nuanced. Nothing about it is simple or straightforward. It keeps unfolding in your glass, revealing more and more scents over the course of a meal. This doesn't mean that straightforward wines are not good. Easy on the palate and the pocketbook, they are great for everyday enjoyment.
Finish: This describes the length of time that flavors and tastes linger after the wine has been swallowed or spit out. Great wines have long, lingering finishes. In addition to length, the nature of the finish is important since the effect of acidity can be felt at this point, especially in white wines. The description for a wine with moderate-to-high acidity may read, "The finish is clean, crisp and refreshing." In red wines, tannins and astringency usually reveal themselves on the finish, which may be described as "smooth and silky" or "rough and coarse."
Ageability: Most wines don't have the ability to mature. They are best consumed in their youth, when they are fresh and fruity. Only a tiny fraction of the world's wines is actually better after five years in the cellar; an even smaller percentage has the ability to improve for decades. In order to age well, a wine must have plenty of extract—flavor compounds, alcohol, tannins, sugars, acids, pigments—and these components must be found in the proper proportions. A young wine with lots of tannins but not much fruit will not age well; the fruit will have faded long before the tannins soften. Similarly, a wine with balanced fruit and tannins but very low levels of extract is not a candidate for aging.
Typicity: A final quality parameter answers the question, "Is this wine typical of its grape variety and growing region?" In great wines, the answer is yes, and descriptors may include "classic," "textbook" and "hallmark." For example, the aromas of tar and roses are hallmarks of Barolo, but would be atypical for red Bordeaux.
Wine scores are based on these parameters, but remember your individual preferences. A highly rated wine may not be of your preferred style, so it's important to consider the description in addition to the score when purchasing a bottle.
At a minimum, wine should be clean and sound. The aromas, flavors, tastes and mouthfeel should be pleasing. However, the best wines are not only pleasing, they are complex. They have long finishes and reflect their grape variety, origin and vintage, as well as the winemaker's skill. Simply put, they are unforgettable.
UNDERSTANDING THE COMPONENTS OF WINE
Wine is basically fermented grape juice. It's made from yeast and crushed grapes, including the pulp and seeds of the fruit and sometimes the skins and stems. You will not find apple juice or honey or nut extract or other flavorings in fine wine. These flavors—along with many others—come from the grapes themselves. The oak barrels in which some wines are stored can impart additional flavors, among them vanilla, spice, toast, smoke and, of course, oak.
The main components of wine provide clues about where the wine was grown and how it was made. They also affect qualities such as taste and mouthfeel. Here is a rundown of what they are:
Water, pressed from the grapes, constitutes the single largest element of wine.
Alcohol, the second-largest element, is produced during fermentation, when yeasts convert grape sugar into alcohol.
Taste and Mouthfeel
Wines with high levels of alcohol have richer mouthfeels and fuller bodies. Alcohol can also add the perception of sweetness. At very high levels, above 15 percent or so, alcohol can add a hot, burning sensation, much like brandy.
Wine Cue
High levels of alcohol indicate that the grapes were very ripe at harvest. This could mean that they were grown in a warm region or during an exceptionally hot summer, or that they were picked very late in the season.
Sugar in wine comes from ripe grapes. It is mostly converted into alcohol during fermentation. Any remaining sugar is called "residual sugar," or RS for short.
Taste and Mouthfeel
Wines with high levels of residual sugar have sweet tastes, along with richer, smoother mouthfeels and fuller bodies. They can leave a coated, cloying sensation in your mouth, much like butterscotch candy. Wines with no sugar, or imperceptible amounts, are referred to as "dry."
Wine Cue
Grapes grown in warmer areas tend to get riper and contain more sugar. This translates into sweeter wines or wines with higher levels of alcohol. Winemakers determine the amount of sugar left in the finished wine. Most red wines are fermented dry and contain little or no sweetness from sugar. Some white wines contain low levels of residual sugar. Dessert wines contain significant amounts.
Acids come from the grapes and are key components in all wines. The three main types of acids in grapes are tartaric, malic and citric.
Taste and Mouthfeel
Acids balance alcohol and sweetness and add a distinctively crisp, refreshing sensation. They may cause your mouth to pucker and salivate, as if you were biting into a lemon wedge. Vinification techniques can affect the mouthfeel of acidity. Some wines undergo malolactic fermentation, which transforms hard, malic acid (think Granny Smith apples) into softer, lactic acid (think milk).
Wine Cue
Grapes are more likely to have higher levels of acidity when they have been grown in cooler regions or places where the temperatures dip significantly at night. Grapes grown in warmer regions tend to have lower levels of acidity.
Phenolics come mainly from red grape skins, so they are especially important in red wines. They can be found in some white wines, however, since they are also imparted by grape seeds and stems, as well as by new oak barrels.
Taste and Mouthfeel
Although the terms "phenolics" and "tannins" are often used interchangeably, tannins are actually one type of phenolic. There are three main types of phenolics in wine, and each contributes to a wine's profile: Anthocyanins add color, catechins add bitterness, and tannins add a drying, astringent mouthfeel. Both bitterness and astringency are slow to develop in your mouth but have real staying power. They are experienced mostly on the finish, since they can take up to 15 seconds to make an impression and then tend to linger. As if that weren't enough, phenolics have a cumulative effect on your tongue. A flight of tannic wines can be overwhelming.
Wine Cue
Anthocyanins correlate with tannins, so when you see a dark red wine in your glass, you can presume that it's slightly astringent.
Phenolic aromas, or the lack thereof, can indicate the source of astringency. Phenolics from grape skins, seeds and stems have no aroma. In contrast, phenolics derived from oak barrels may have aromas of wood, smoke, vanilla or coconut.
Phenolic concentration—along with color, bitterness and astringency—usually decreases over time. With years of bottle-aging, reds become lighter-bodied and less intensely colored, smoother and less astringent.
Flavor compounds come from the grapes and the winemaking process. They impart aromas and flavors that can mimic citrus fruits, tropical fruits, berries, flowers, jam, nuts, caramel and a host of other scents. Compared with other foods, wine is incredibly complex.
Glycerol is a byproduct of fermentation. Although it's rarely concentrated enough to add body, it can add a hint of sweetness.
Minerals, originally present in vineyard soils, may contribute slightly to body. Although minerals may also be perceptible as aromas and flavors, the connection to the soil is indirect. Wine made from grapes grown in chalky soils will not smell chalky, and loamy soils won't make a wine smell loamy.
Salts are found below the perception threshold. But while you can't taste the salts, some scientists believe that they enhance the flavors in wine.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Like the ingredients in lemonade, individual wine components are not experienced in isolation—they are part of a blend. In both lemonade and wine, the components can be divided into two categories, soft and hard, depending on their mouthfeels.
The soft components of wine are fruit, sugar and alcohol. They can seem soft, round and lush in your mouth. (Fruit is included even though it's a scent and has no mouthfeel, because your brain interprets ripe fruit scents as being sweet.) The hard components are acids and tannins. They can seem firm, sharp, angular and harsh.
Soft and hard components balance each other.
In lemonade, the equation looks like this:
Sweetness Acidity
In wine, the equation looks like this:
Sweetness + Alcohol + Fruit
Acidity + Bitterness + Astringency
In most white wines, acidity, the lone hard component, gives structure. In red wines, ripe fruit aromas and alcohol soften the acidity and astringent tannins. Dessert wines have high levels of acidity that balance the high levels of sweetness.
This balance is actually on a continuum; there is no single point at which wine is correctly balanced. Some people prefer sweeter lemonade, while others add more lemon juice. With wine, the grape variety and style influence the balance point. Chardonnay, with its lush fruit and alcohol, is usually on the softer, rounder end of the continuum. Sauvignon Blanc, with its bracing acidity, is usually on the harder, crisper end.
TALKING ABOUT WINE
Without a doubt, the most difficult part of sensory evaluation is coming up with descriptors. Paradoxically, the best way to begin describing wine is to say nothing at all. Don't even try to think of any descriptors for about 15 seconds after sniffing or sipping. Instead, allow an overall impression of the wine to develop slowly; let the wine come to you.
The next step is to search for specific descriptors. Most people begin with fruit aromas. For example, white wines normally evoke pale-fleshed fruit families, including citrus, tree and tropical fruits. Tasters then often specify particular fruits in each family, such as lemon or grapefruit, apple or pear, mango or pineapple. For red wines, important fruit families include red fruits and tree fruits. Some detailed examples are strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, black cherry and plum.
After fruit aromas come other flavors, such as vanilla, spice, mineral and tobacco. Then come structural descriptors, such as firm or soft. Finally, you return to where you started, with descriptors such as elegant, delicate, muscular and powerful.
KEY DESCRIPTORS
Ordering wine in a restaurant requires minimal terminology. You can leave the heavy lifting to the staff: "I'm looking for a bottle of wine to go with your [insert main course here]. Could you recommend a couple of different wines and describe them?" Then all you have to do is choose between them.
For more personalized recommendations, mention your wine preferences: "I prefer wines with crisp acidity, and I'm not partial to obvious amounts of oak."
Here are some basic categories that will help the waiter or sommelier make a recommendation that's right for you:
Color: White, pink or red
Body: Lighter or fuller
Wood: No oak or oak
Sweetness: Dry or slightly sweet (Caution: Avoid the term "fruity." It correctly refers to a wine's fruit flavors but is often misunderstood to mean sweetness.)
Descriptions based on these categories might include "I'd like a big, oaky red" or "I'd like a lighter, dry white."
In wine stores, a few additional details, such as wine origin, the occasion or dish and the price range, can help you find a bottle you'll enjoy. You might say, "I'm looking for a bottle of red to serve with a roasted chicken this weekend, maybe something in the $12 to $16 range." As always, stating your preferences is important.
TASTING NOTES
The more thoroughly you can describe a wine, the better you will remember it and the richer your framework will be for tasting, comparing and evaluating wines.
Writing an expert tasting note takes practice. For guidelines, follow the steps outlined in the "Expert Tasting Methodology" chart. An "expert" note for a sweet white wine might read: "This wine is clear and bright, but not brilliant. The gold color is intense. Offers heady aromas of orange peel, dried apricot, vanilla and spice. The wine is full-bodied, lusciously rich and sweet, yet with sufficient acidity to stay balanced. Flavors of honey echo on the long finish. Powerful, yet elegant; a classic Sauternes. Mature now, but will be drinking well for decades."
But such minute detail is best relegated to technical tastings and your own tasting journal. At a dinner party, it's certain to make eyes glaze over.
THE EVOLVING LANGUAGE OF WINE
Just as languages evolve, so too does the terminology used for wine tasting. Adrienne Lehrer, a linguist who has tracked wine words for decades, points out that analytic terms were prevalent around 1980. They described the sensory impact of individual wine components. Descriptors for acidity, such as sharp, crisp and flabby, and descriptors for astringency, such as rough and silky, occupied much of the lexicon.
Today's language is broader. In addition to using analytic terms, it blends anthropomorphic descriptors, such as masculine and feminine, with more technical terms, such as body, texture and structure, which were rarely mentioned 25 years ago. Interestingly, these technical terms are each related to mouthfeel and to the combined impact of wine components.
You've heard these descriptors used in other contexts, but what does each term mean when it comes to wine?
Masculine vs. Feminine are descriptors that rarely appear in Wine Spectator tasting notes, but they can be helpful for forming an overall impression of a wine. Masculine wines are big and powerful. They are muscular, with big tannins. They demand attention, rather like a shout. In contrast, feminine wines are delicate, elegant and slender. They are more subtle, like a whisper. Their layers of complexity can be overlooked unless you're paying close attention.
Structure is sensed through a wine's mouthfeel. Two groups of components contribute to mouthfeel—the soft group, which includes sugar and alcohol, and the hard group, which includes acids and tannins. Structure is determined by both the quantity of these components and the balance between the soft and hard groups.
The human body provides an analogy. The soft component is like flesh and the hard component like bone. The flesh softens the body and rounds it out. When a person or a wine has more flesh in relation to bone, descriptors such as soft, round, lush, plump and even flabby come to mind. The bone carries the flesh and keeps the body upright. When there is more bone than flesh, the structure is described as firm, sharp and angular.
Body refers to the wine's weight, or how thick it is. For example, skim milk is light-bodied; it feels thin or light in your mouth. Cream is full-bodied; it feels thick or heavy.
Body is important because it can help determine drinking order (light- before full-bodied) and food pairings (lighter foods go with lighter-bodied wines; heavier foods are better paired with fuller-bodied wines).
Sugar, alcohol and tannins each add body to wine. Furthermore, the perception of body increases as a wine's aromatic intensity increases, yet, in contrast, decreases as acidity increases.
Texture is a tactile sensation perceived in your mouth. It is contributed mainly by acidity and tannins, and by residual sugar. Descriptors include silky, smooth, velvety and rough. I've noticed that whenever I'm sampling great wine or great food, I start thinking of it in terms of texture rather than in terms of aroma, flavor or taste.
Texture should not be confused with other mouthfeels associated with wine: temperature, weight, viscosity and irritation, which can be caused by spiciness or bubbles.
Becoming a Wine Connoisseur
It's fairly easy to recognize a bad wine: It's the one left untouched in your glass. Good wine quickly becomes a memory. But how do you know when a wine is great?
That's a question I regularly ask winemakers. They usually begin by mentioning a few quality parameters, the most frequently cited of which are balance, complexity and completeness, along with texture.
But then the conversation shifts. Instead of discussing additional features, winemakers start talking about how difficult it is to describe a great wine—and these are people who know a lot about wine!
Winemaker Mia Klein, of California's Selene, reflects, "I'm very good at coming up with descriptors, but when a wine really hits me, I'm almost left speechless. And that's when I know that I'm drinking a great wine; when I don't have any descriptors just flowing."
Joel Aiken, of Beaulieu Vineyard, agrees, "If it's simple to describe, then it's obviously a simple wine."
Some responses veer toward the mystical, which can be refreshing after hours of insights into pH levels and fermentation temperatures. "There are lots of good wines in the world [that] give you pleasure. A great wine gives you emotion," muses Veronique Drouhin of Oregon's Domaine Drouhin.
Other winemakers mention the overall experience. "I think it's not the wine so much as it is the company, the conversation, the food. I mean, those things … make great wine great," says Robert Brittan, former winemaker at Stags' Leap Winery.
Maybe, in addition to all the scientific explanations, appreciating wine is about more than understanding the science of its production or components. Appreciation is also about enjoyment, about sharing the experience of wine. This is the path of the connoisseur.
As much pleasure as this path brings, it takes commitment and dedication to gain a deeper appreciation of wine. Here are a few suggestions:
Taste regularly. And when you do, try two or more wines at a time; comparing and contrasting makes it much easier to identify and evaluate each wine's features.
Keep a tasting journal. Whether you write exhaustive notes in a leather-bound book or a few key descriptors in your PDA, a journal will help you remember wines and styles that you've tried.
Get to know your local retailer. Your favorite retailer can be a great wine mentor, answering questions and suggesting wines that will be delicious with dinner or interesting to compare in a tasting at home.
Take a wine course. Whether it's through a local wine school, a university program or an online class, a good wine course can change the way you look at wine.
There are many ways to learn about wine. No matter how you decide to continue your education, you can't go wrong by following this advice: Practice hedonism. Enjoy each sip. Whether the wine in your glass is marvelous or merely drinkable, it connects you to distant vineyards and close friends.
If you do follow this advice, you will be on the path to becoming a connoisseur. Fortunately, this enjoyable journey can continue for the rest of your life—there's always a new vintage, there's always a new wine and there's always something new to learn.
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