Welcome to the seventh part of the series Tasting analysis like a professional. Where the previous parts have been about observing (sight, aroma, taste) and about avoiding pitfalls in blind tasting, here we turn our gaze inward, towards the measuring instrument itself: you. A tasting assessment is only as reliable as the palate and nose that deliver it, and both can be calibrated.
Think of it as a scientific discipline. Sensory analysis is in fact defined as eliciting, measuring, analysing and interpreting reactions to properties perceived by the senses. If those interpretations are to be credible, they must rest on an instrument that is trained, calibrated and consistent over time. This is the part that ties the whole series together.
What you will learn
- How your senses can be trained physiologically, and what the training actually changes
- How to use references and benchmarks to anchor your assessments
- Why tasting in series sharpens your ability to compare
- How to keep your assessments consistent over time
The senses can be trained
It is easy to believe that taste is an innate talent. In practice it is to a large degree learned perception. The explanation lies in how the senses work. Smell impressions arise when volatile molecules bind to receptor proteins in the mucous membranes of the nose. Humans have around a thousand different protein receptors, and the olfactory epithelium holds on the order of five million smell neurons. Together this enables us to recognise around 10,000 different aromas. The point is the word recognise: the receptors register the molecule, but it is the brain that links the signal to a name, a memory, a category.
It is that link that gets trained. When you repeatedly encounter the same aroma compound and put words to it, you build an ever finer mental library. Taste works in parallel. We have five basic taste receptors for sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami, distributed across around 2,000 taste buds. They do not change with training, but your ability to read their interplay and put it into context does.
One physiological detail is worth remembering: during normal breathing only around 5% of the inhaled air reaches the smell receptors, while active sniffing raises that to about 20%. Sniffing deliberately is therefore not affectation but a measurable quadrupling of the aroma signal you are working with.
Why thresholds matter
Training is also about getting to know your own thresholds. An aroma threshold is the smallest concentration at which an aroma becomes perceptible, and it is established through triangle tests with sensory panels at the 50% detection level. Thresholds vary enormously between compounds. Methoxypyrazines, which give green, vegetal notes, have extremely low thresholds in the range of 1 to 10 ng/L. That explains why a compound present in vanishingly small amounts can dominate a glass. Once you understand OAV (odour active value), the ratio between concentration and perception threshold, you also understand why it is not necessarily the most concentrated compound that smells the most.
References and benchmarks
A calibrated palate is a palate that measures against something. Trained sensory panels are expected to deliver data that are accurate, repeatable, sensitive and reproducible, and that is not achieved by tasting freely from memory. You anchor yourself in references.
In practice this means building concrete points of comparison for the compounds you want to be able to recognise. Malic acid versus lactic acid is an obvious example: malolactic fermentation converts the sharp malic acid into the softer lactic acid and lowers the overall acidity. Having tasted the two side by side, you can afterwards read the phenomenon in a finished glass. The same goes for acetaldehyde, the most important aldehyde in wine, where small amounts lift the bouquet while excess gives sherry-like smells, or for volatile acidity, where a little acetic acid contributes positively and a lot tips over into vinegar.
You can also anchor yourself in chemical families. Ethyl esters give fruity aromas, medium-chain fatty acids give milky notes, and higher alcohols give fusel-like tones. Terpenes such as linalool account for the floral typicity in aromatic grapes such as Gewürztraminer, Muscat and Riesling. When you can name a family, you do not need to be able to name every single molecule in order to assess consistently.
If you want to refresh aroma systematics itself, the foundation lies in The aroma: Aromas and aroma families.
Tasting in series
The most effective calibration happens not on a single glass, but on several side by side. Tasting in series gives you a relative scale instead of an absolute guess. Three wines side by side reveal differences in acidity, structure and aroma intensity that you would never catch by tasting them on separate days.
The professional framework underlines the same principle. Sensory assessment booths should be arranged so that the assessors cannot see one another, and they should be temperature-controlled, odour-free and quiet. It is about removing all the noise that would otherwise shift your assessment without you noticing. You cannot build a laboratory at home, but you can borrow the principle: taste in neutral light, without competing aromas, and do not let yourself be swayed by what the person next to you thinks.
How to structure a series
- Taste from the light and dry towards the full-bodied and sweet, so the palate is not overwhelmed early
- Keep variables constant: same glass type, same temperature, same amount in the glass
- Cleanse the palate between samples, and give it short breaks so the receptors do not adapt
- Take notes as you go rather than at the end, so the impressions do not merge in memory
Tasting in a structured way is closely connected to the method itself, which is described in Systematic wine tasting: The method.
Consistency over time
Calibration is not a one-off event. A palate drifts, just like any measuring instrument, and the task is to catch the drift before it spreads to your assessments. That is the core of the requirement that data be repeatable and reproducible: you must be able to arrive at the same assessment of the same wine on different days.
A couple of mechanisms are worth keeping in mind. Smell perception is composite. Several aroma substances interact during perception through the brain's processing and can produce integrated, competing or cancelling effects. This means that the same compound can be experienced differently depending on what it appears alongside. So be cautious about drawing firm conclusions from a single impression in a complex wine.
Also remember the external conditions that affect the glass itself. Oxidation occurs when wine meets oxygen, and antioxidants such as ascorbic acid and sulphur dioxide counteract it. A wine that has stood open is no longer the same reference. If you are calibrating against a particular wine, assess it under comparable conditions every time.
In concrete terms, you maintain consistency by revisiting your references at regular intervals, by tasting blind as often as you can so expectation does not steer perception, and by keeping notes you can return to. The pitfalls of the blind exercise are dealt with separately in Blind tasting: Method and pitfalls.
In brief
- The senses are trained not by changing the receptors, but by building the brain's library of recognised aromas and tastes
- Active sniffing increases the aroma signal from about 5% to around 20% of the inhaled air
- References and benchmarks (malic versus lactic acid, aroma families, known thresholds) anchor your assessments
- Tasting in series gives a relative scale that is far more reliable than isolated guesses
- Consistency requires ongoing recalibration, neutral conditions and notes you can return to
Frequently asked questions
Can you really train your sense of smell, or is it innate?
It can be trained. The receptor equipment is roughly the same in all of us (around a thousand receptor types and about five million smell neurons), but the ability to recognise and name the up to 10,000 aromas we can distinguish is built up through deliberate and repeated practice.
How often should I recalibrate against references?
There is no fixed answer in the sources, but the principle is that a palate drifts over time. Return to your references regularly and taste blind when you can, so you catch the drift before it affects your conclusions.
Ready for the next step?
A calibrated palate is worth little if the impressions evaporate before they are written down. In the next part, Tasting notes and scoring systems, we look at how to capture your assessments in a structured way and make them comparable over time.
The best way to train is to taste deliberately and often, ideally with several bottles side by side. Have a look at the selection and find a few wines to calibrate against. And remember that the finest combination is still the wine you like with the food you like. The rest is practice.