Most of us know how to taste wine from the restaurant ritual, the self-conscious moment in which we check wine for “off” smells. After your waiter pours a taste, you swirl, sniff, and decide.
That is all well and good for sampling a wine for faults, but I implore you not to judge the overall taste of wine like that. I have had innumerable wines that start unspectacularly, only to change for the better after a few minutes.
Actually, sometimes it is you, and your powers of perception, that makes the transformation. Your palate needs time to get over that Listerine strip from an hour ago or the forty-clove garlic chicken that tattooed itself on your tongue at lunch. Or maybe you became rattled by the deeply untalented mariachi band playing near your table, since the enjoyment of wine is often contextual. A wine’s taste changes with one’s surroundings; why else would so many people enjoy a wine more on vacation than they would enjoy another bottle of it back home in the daily grind? Moreover, food can dramatically alter your perception of wine. For example, an astringent Barolo will taste less bitter in the presence of proteins like steak and fats such as cheese.
Sometimes the wine itself needs to come around. An agricultural product, wine evolves in your glass as it is exposed to air, becoming more expressive and a bit softer, and more so when it is placed in a decanter (chapter 67). Even in cases for which there is an initial whiff of a worrisome element like sulfur, for example, that flaw can, in wine parlance, “blow off” with time, revealing a delicious wine underneath.
So although it is true that during a job interview or on a hot date you never get a second chance to make a first impression, it is best to give your wine more time before drawing a conclusion. Linger with it, and learn.