Though you might not know it from looking outside the window in San Francisco, spring is here! This week, our produce box brought the season's first cherries, apricots and peaches. It's good to be alive. It's also a great time to sharpen your wine-tasting skills.
"Huh?" you say! You read right — spring and summer provide the best opportunity to hone your palate. You see, sense memory (smell being the most important, but taste figuring prominently) is the key to sharpening your wine tasting acumen. Those of us who grew up oblivious to natural aromas, whether by situation or parenting, have some serious catching up to do on remembering what a peach smells like, and how that's different from a plum, or how to tell apart different flowers. Artificially flavored or scented products didn't help, either. The cherry pie I made last weekend — pictures to come — was worlds apart from the cherry filling I grew up with. Which is a good thing, since I grew up hating cherry pie!
The good news is that sense memory can be developed, like a muscle. You might be flexing a different part of your brain than when you're studying calculus, say, but it's no less taxing. Add in the fact that when you taste wine, you're consuming alcohol — a little, even if you spit — and the challenge is significant. Though doing a shot with each calc problem way back when might been alright...
So that's where spring comes in. I love going to a farmer's market and picking up a new fruit or vegetable and giving it a big sniff. Or revisiting a familiar favorite - tasting a perfectly ripe wild strawberry can be mind blowing. It hones your palate when you're not drinking. After fruits, move on to herbs, spices — the whole world is your smelling kit — but the unique, once-a-year stuff starts now.
Of course, there is no substitute for drinking wine. Why would you want to? To deduce the smells and tastes in the glass is only one of the pleasures afforded by our beloved drink. Perhaps the gift wine has given us is the inquisitiveness to more deeply explore and inhabit our world.
So, your homework, is to go to a farmers' market or a good produce store near you, and smell. It'll make your wine taste better.
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