The standardization of taste – Part 2

Do you think taste is something shaped by experience? Maybe by market? Habits? Family? Tradition? Well, I think taste is shaped by all that together. So, let’s talk a little bit about what is consider a good wine.

I’m really intrigued. I am currently finishing a master’s degree in Wine Culture in Piedmont at the University of Gastronomic Sciences, the headquarters of Slow Food. It is true that we have a taste pattern for wine. Among connoisseurs is sought a balanced pattern between acidity, tannins, body, structure. Anything that differs from this pattern these same connoisseurs call a defect.

The reaction of people to the different of this pattern bothers me. Some even say that natural wine does not even exist. I agree that a wine has to be pleasant to the palate and needs to generate pleasure in those who drink it. For the same reason I tried during childhood to tell my mother that Brussels sprouts did not please me and that, therefore, I did not want to eat them.

Another very important part is to see the impact of the old world wine culture generate a pattern that puts everything that diverges out of what is considered good. I have observed that those wines of the new world that resemble or seek a pattern similar to the great schools of French and Italian wine are exalted while those who seek an expression of their own terroir are left behind. Of course for those who came from the Old World

Well, we can not say that wine that does not please us is not good. We must say we do not like it. Taste is something very personal and there is space for a whole diverse universe of preferences.