Tasting wine analytically involves a detailed examination of aromas as well as breaking down its structure into basic elements of acidity, sweetness, tannins, alcohol, and body. But does this method reveal the soul of a wine? While it’s useful for understanding the varietal character of wine, I’ve long felt that is leaves the individuality or personality of a wine unexplored.
That is why I included an appendix in my book Beauty and the Yeast in which I laid out a different approach to wine tasting that emphasizes a wine’s vitality and dynamics as it moves across the palate, and focused much more intently on mouthfeel and the shape of the wine in the mouth.
Apparently, this idea has caught on among some important people in the wine business (quite independently of my efforts) and is now an identified method of tasting called Geosensorial tasting.
Celebrated French Sommelier Pascaline Lapeltier has a recent article in Decanter about this method, and the Alsatiand winemaking icon Jean-Marcel Deiss has long been a proponent.
Geosensorial tasting is a method of wine evaluation that its proponents claim is uniquely able to grasp how a wine’s sensory and tactile qualities express its terroir. It begins with a curious act of restraint—no swirling and little sniffing. Aromas, while enchanting, we know are fickle and malleable, changing with glass shapes, temperatures, moods, and individual differences among tasters regarding their sensitivity to aroma compounds.
This alternative approach is rooted in the view that the tactile sensations of wine—such as its minerality, weight, and tension—are less influenced by external factors like oxygenation or the subjective variability of smell. Advocates argue that these qualities provide a clearer link to a wine’s geographical origin.
I’m not sure about the connection between mouthfeel and terroir. My concern was less about identifying origins and more about describing what the wine tastes like, identifying its personality, and explaining what is enjoyable about it. I’m happy to identify a nervy, electric tang on the finish of a Riesling from the Mosel and leave the vineyard identification to tasters well positioned to do extensive pairwise comparisons.
My hypothesis was that whether we enjoy a wine or not has more to do with mouthfeel than whether that’s cherry or raspberry I’m smelling.
At any rate, I think this is an important development in wine tasting.
It is an attractive view what when you drink a wine, it’s not just wine you’re tasting; it’s the vineyard’s biography, narrated in textures and dynamic movements across the palate.
I have my doubts that it will become mainstream in the U.S. where varietal character is still king, but it will be welcome among those tired of reading lists of aroma notes in wine reviews.
Exploring the Philosophy of Food and Wine 