{"id":3238,"date":"2026-02-28T22:25:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T22:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=3238"},"modified":"2026-02-28T22:25:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T22:25:30","slug":"it-tastes-different","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=3238","title":{"rendered":"It Tastes Different"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When we go wine tasting, we not only sip.  We buy. Oh, not cases, but a bottle or two where we taste something particularly enjoyable.  If we\u2019re really impressed we join the winery\u2019s club.  Once at home, we put the wine in the rack to let it settle.  We may not get around to opening the bottles for months or even years.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Photo courtesy of Ultra Wine Racks.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

And when we do, we often seem to remember that the wine tasted different at the winery.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have connoisseur-level taste memory, but we do have a sense of what we drank \u2013 and liked enough to buy \u2013 once before.\u00a0 What\u2019s in our glass back home somehow just isn\u2019t the same.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, that\u2019s as it should be.  The wine we drank in a tasting room was, for the most part, recently bottled from a vintage at most three years before and more likely only two.  The mere fact that we put the wine down in our \u201ccellar\u201d gave it more time for the tannins to blend in and maybe for some sediment to drop out.  Age alone doesn\u2019t make a wine great, but it does in many but not all instances, change it.  The wines we tend to value the most are the ones that sit longest, so change is expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are other reasons for the difference between what we tasted then and now that are more psychological.  For one thing, it is rare that we buy the first wine we taste at a winery.  That one is likely to be a white, which we purchase and drink less frequently.  But the Sauvignon Blanc they often serve first at a winery primes our taste buds for the Cabernet Sauvignon or Grenache that we care about more greatly.  At home, we don\u2019t often open more than the bottle we are going to have with dinner that night, so we only have the one taste in our mouths.  That doesn\u2019t make it worse, just different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Generally, that bottle at home is an accompaniment to a meal.  In the tasting room, wine is the star; it\u2019s why we are there in the first place.  But when the bottle shares the table with, say, a roast beef there are several taste experiences vying for our tongues\u2019 attention.  There are times when the wine steals the show, but the experience<\/em> of that wine is different than it was back where we bought it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, the meal that the wine accompanies changes our perception of its taste.  The California Cab or Italian Barolo is going to match up differently with a steak versus a pasta, for two examples.  That\u2019s really a good thing and it\u2019s why some people are so interested in wine pairing.  We\u2019re less picky than other people, but we recognize that some bottles fit better with some meals than others.  The reverse is also true: The choice of food changes our enjoyment of the wine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So don\u2019t fret if the wine you remember so well from that tasting trip a few years ago isn\u2019t exactly what you thought it would be.  Enjoy it for what it is at the winery and then again for what it is at your dinner table.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we go wine tasting, we not only sip.  We buy. Oh, not cases, but a bottle or two where we taste something particularly enjoyable.  If we\u2019re really impressed we join the winery\u2019s club.  Once at home, we put the wine in the rack to let it settle.  We may not get around to opening … Continue reading It Tastes Different<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3238"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3240,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3238\/revisions\/3240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}