Why should I care how my sense of taste works?

Understanding how you taste is vital to getting the most out of your tasting experience, whether it is wine, whiskey or food. Since wine and whiskey tasting have a special place in the hearts of my friends, this page focuses on getting the most out of them. You can use the basic principles with all of the foods and beverages you taste.

What you have been taught about tasting may be wrong.

Were you taught that your taste buds are all located on your tongue? Wrong. Most are, but you have taste buds located at many other locations in your mouth and throat passages.

Bet you learned there are four basic tastes. Wrong.  There are five. In addition to sweet, salty, sour and bitter, there is umami.  It is a very important basic taste, but it’s unlikely you were taught about it.

You were probably taught that each taste bud is responsible for a single basic taste and you can map your tongue to show where each basic taste is sensed. Wrong. Each taste bud has the receptors for each of the five basic tastes. In fact, each has between 50 and 100 receptors.

Your sense of smell is important to your ability to taste. Absolutely Right. The Masonic lecture on Taste notes that “smelling and tasting are inseparably linked” and our ancient brethren got that correct.

Smelling may be responsible for as much as 80% of our tasting experience.

Why is tasting important?

First, in the words of our Masonic lecture, it allows you to “distinguish wholesome food from that which is nauseous”.

Second, it allows you to truly enjoy what you eat and drink. If you have ever lost your sense of smell and taste, you realize how important they are to your enjoying life. They may not be among the three senses “most revered by Masons”, but they are revered none-the-less.

Why is understanding how I taste vital?

Understanding why the techniques taught in the following videos for tasting wine and whiskey are effective requires you to understand how your senses of smell and taste work. Understanding how they work together and how you can best use them will open up new vistas of enjoyment for you.

The Crash Course video on smelling and tasting is a highly entertaining introduction to how these senses work and how they join in giving you the best possible tasting experience. Take about 10 minutes to view it first. Then you will understand how and why the techniques for tasting wine and whiskey work so well.

What is the taste labeled umami?

What it is.

You have receptors in your taste buds that are triggered by glutamates in food. When you say something tastes “delicious”, this is the taste you are likely experiencing. The word is borrowed from Japanese and translates roughly to “delicious taste”.

Where you find it.

You find these glutamates naturally in many foods. As a tomato ripens, its glutamate levels rise and the same is true for ham as it cures. You can use Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) as a flavor enhancer to enhance this taste

How can I maximize my enjoyment of wine?

Remember that your personal preferences are just as important in matters of taste in food and beverages as they are in music, dress, clothing and every other aspect of life. You can use the techniques shown in these videos to understand and define those preferences.

You do not have to become a master sommelier to develop a list of wines that you especially enjoy. Share the tasting experience with others. You can take advantage of tastings at your local wine outlet. Discuss what you are tasting with the staff and others. The point is not to become a wine “snob”, but rather an un-intimidated  knowledgeable consumer. You deserve to maximize your enjoyment, and with a little extra effort, that is not only possible but fun.

Wine tasting resources

When you have the time, there is an excellent recorded live class on Wine conducted by Jack Keegan. He is a Miami University Instructor and Certified Wine Educator. Mr. Keegan covers not only the tasting but interesting background on the raising, harvesting and processing of the grapes. It is about an hour long. There is about a 10-minute stretch where the audio quality deteriorates and throughout he fields questions from his students, but it is well worth watching.

As you might expect, Amazon has a large selection of wine tasting supplies. This includes journals for your wine experiences, food pairing and wine selection charts and wine tasting party supplies.

There are scores of videos on wine tasting. I have chosen an interview with a master sommelier. There are only about 200 master sommeliers in the world so his observations on the selection and tasting of wines are particularly worth taking a few minutes to enjoy.

How can I maximize my enjoyment of whiskey?

The video on whiskey tasting I chose applies most of the same techniques of wine tasting to American whiskeys. You may note the tasters use stemmed glasses that seem to be Glencairn tasting glasses with glass toppers. Interestingly, they suggest you smell a wide variety of fresh herbs and spices as well as woods, so your memory can recognize those scents in the whiskeys. The taste testing is very entertaining and quite informative. 

The Distillery Trail has a well written detailed blog on whiskey tasting that I recommend.

Here again Amazon has journals, books, Glencairn tasting glasses and a wide variety of supplies for enhancing your understanding of whiskeys and your tasting experience.  One of the more intriguing offerings is a book entitled Iconic Whiskeys with tasting notes on some 1,000 whiskeys.

Enjoy and I look forward to your comments.