18 WINE AND THE ART OF WINE TASTING. 



the knee. This causes the wine to give off its odors, and in the case of 

 sparkling wines its carbonic acid, more freely. The method, writes 

 Ottavi, is not very polished or elegant, but accomplishes the purpose 

 very well. 



As can be easily seen the wine taster should preserve his senses, that 

 is, those of smell and taste, with their utmost sensibility; this is only 

 done by avoiding excesses of all kinds, for these in course of time are 

 bound to diminish that sensibility, or to destroy it completely. Thus 

 he must abstain from all highly alcoholic beverages, from strongly 

 salted or flavored dishes, from tobacco in any form, and in general from 

 everything that acts too energetically on the organs of the above- 

 mentioned senses. 



Physical indisposition, more especially affections of the nasal organs, 

 the mouth, or throat, diminish or destroy all sensibility of the senses of 

 taste and smell. 



" Wine should not be tasted fasting, or it will taste weak and insipid; 

 nor after drinking wine; nor with a full stomach. Moreover, the taster 

 should not have eaten anything sour, salt, or bitter, nor anything which 

 might change his taste; but he should have eaten a little, but not yet 

 have digested it." Carlo Stefano. 



The taster should not attempt to give his opinion of more than a 

 certain number of wines at a time, asafter having tasted a certain 

 number the senses become temporarily much impaired and incapable of 

 nice discrimination; nor should he judge of a wine after an abundant 

 repast, as the various flavors of highly seasoned or sweetened foods have 

 a great influence on the palate, and prevent it from judging a wine 

 critically. 



It is a well-known fact that after eating sweet fruit a wine seems to 

 be rougher and harsher than it really is, whilst cheese, nuts, artichokes, 

 etc., make it appear smoother and more delicate. 



With piquant cheese, like Parmigiano and Roquefort more especially, 

 which Grimod de la Reyniere has called "the tippler's biscuit," all 

 wines seem good, or at least much better than they really are. It is 

 also true that strong and badly tasting wines when drunk undiluted 

 destroy the sensibility of the palate; people habituated to these wines 

 end by being unable to find any taste in the fine wines of delicate flavor 

 which are the delight of the connoisseur. 



Tasters who are accustomed only to high-class wines, when they taste 

 ordinary or low-class wines are apt to underrate them, if they do not 

 reject them as altogether valueless, though they may be sound and 

 clean tasting. 



On the other hand, tasters accustomed to ordinary wines almost 

 always deem the prices paid for high-class wines excessive. 



This suggests the importance of habit as a factor in the modifications 

 which the taste may undergo. It may easily happen that the prolonged 

 use of a substance may render the sense of taste obtuse, and that the 

 tongue may become " saturated," as Brillat-Savarin says in one of his 

 happy aphorisms. Thus, when the palate has become habituated to a 

 taste, that which at first was intolerable becomes often pleasing and 

 even necessary. Generally, however, habit educates the sense of taste 

 and renders it acute. 



Sometimes a taster is called upon to give an opinion as to the character, 



