How’s Your Palate?
Not being heavily knowledgeable about wine, I’m always looking for ways to learn more. A recent issue of had a helpful little section on improving your wine palate. Karen MacNeil, a Cooking Light wine columnist and author of , gives us the following helpful tips:
Buy a basic, neutral-tasting white wine like an inexpensive pinot grigio.
Pour the wine into five wineglasses, and add a different food to each glass. Choose foods that commonly appear in wine descriptions, such as blackberries, fennel, grapefruit, bell pepper, peaches or peppercorns.
Cover each glass with plastic wrap, and allow the foods to marinate in the wine for several hours.
Remove the food items, then sniff and taste each wine.
You’ll find it easy to tell the wine with berry aromas and flavors from the one that’s bell-peppery - and you’ll better recognize those flavors when they’re present in the next bottle you enjoy with dinner, MacNeil says.
