如何學習品酒 3 Ways to Improve Wine Tasting

Hello, everyone. Welcome to today's episode. So today I'm taking a day off and I'm going to somewhere really nice to really relax, calm down, have a coffee, have some wine and just to reflect. So today I'm going to Discovery Bay, which is just 20 minutes out of central Hong Kong, which is a concrete and glass jungle. And that place is basically a beautiful oasis, beach, mountain behind, a lot of nice little restaurants. So today I want to talk to you about something that all of you have asked me about is how do we improve our wine tasting skills? Can everyone learn how to taste wine? What if I don't have any talents? So wine tasting really revolves two parts. The first part is the theoretical part. You have to have a certain theoretical knowledge to understand the wine. But the other part is the practical side, which involves how to taste the wine, involve your senses and communicate what you get through your senses in words to be able to communicate to other people and to understand and to record the wine. That will help you to remember the wine and to recall this information for future use. So today we're going to focus on the practical side and I'm going to show you some tips and tricks on how to improve your wine tasting skills. But first, let's get to Discovery Bay. We're going to take the ferry. Let's go. So I'm at Discovery Bay. It's super nice out here. Got myself a cup of coffee. It's a really good time to relax. Weather is quite nice. It's not too hot. A little bit humid, but it's Hong Kong. Get used to it. So a lot of people ask me this question. Is tasting skills something that's an innate talent that people are born with? Or is that something that people can learn? Some people tell me, oh, they don't have the talent. They can never be a good taster. They don't know how to identify those flavors and aromas. Well, let me tell you something. Wine tasting is a skill that anyone can learn and get really good at it. You just need to practice. No one is born a great taster. So think of wine like a language. Just like when you're starting out, let's say French, you hear two sentences. The first one is, je suis grand. The second one is, le vin est bon. So of course, if you haven't learned anything, you don't know what it means. But at least you can tell that the two are different. Just like if you pick up two wines, two different wines. Maybe you're not able to tell the aromas in each of the wines. But at least you can tell that those are different wines. That's a good starting point. So when you're learning the language, if I tell you that, je suis grand means I am tall. And le vin est bon means the wine is good. So once you build certain vocabulary, you start to build certain understanding of the language. And over time, when you accumulate a lot of vocabulary, you can speak the language, you can understand it. So similarly, in wine, the vocabulary is the aromas, the flavors in the wine. So when you learn wine tasting, we're going to help you to build those vocabularies. We're going to help you to build the association between the aroma and the language. So that you can understand the wine, you can remember the wine, and you can communicate the wine to other people. So in languages, the vocabulary is made of words and sentences. And in wine, the vocabulary is made of the aromas and flavors. So no one is born knowing how to speak. Everyone learns through a process. So anyone can learn to taste wine. You just need to build the wine vocabulary to understand the wine and to be able to communicate the wine to other people. So I just had my coffee. It's quite nice. And I did a bit of writing. I thought about what I want to shoot later on. Developed some ideas, did a bit of brainstorming, which is quite good. I got a bit hungry, so I came to the restaurant right next to the cafe. And I ordered four very hot day like this, a very appropriate wine, which is a very refreshing Riesling from Australia. Riesling is a variety I recommend to a lot of people because it's quite refreshing, very approachable. It's good for beginners, and if you want to get into very complex wines, this variety can also deliver a high level of complexity. So today I'm getting a very nice grilled salmon with some vegetables and mashed potato. Very nutritious, very healthy. It's the type of food I really like to eat. Some beginners tell me that they have a hard time identifying flavors and aromas. So get used to exploring the world with your nose. Smell everything that's appropriate. Everywhere you go, use your nose. Smell the air. Smell your food. Smell the clothes. Smell the flowers. Smell the leaves. Smell the fruits. Smell your vegetables. Get used to using your sense of smell to associate the sensation of aroma to words. That will help you become a better taster also. Or for example, when you taste something like a mashed potato, when you have it in your mouth, feel the texture, feel the flavors. Think about what are the ingredients that went into it, what are the processes. Once you get good at that, you get pretty good at tasting wines too. Tasting is not just about wine. It's about everything you put in your mouth, everything you smell. So everything is in common. Your sense of smell, your sense of taste can be used for everything. So once you train it in a holistic way, you will become a better taster. So wine usually has different layers of flavors. Sometimes there are some fruits, some oak, some treasury aromas. Everything is in the same wine. So you have to practice at breaking them down into individual pieces, into individual aromas and flavors. So you don't have to practice always with wine. You can practice with food too. For example, there's a sauce. You can taste the sauce and think about, okay, there's olive oil, there's some oregano, some thyme, some rosemary, a bit of acidity. So this is how you break down complex flavors into their individual components. So you do the same thing whenever you taste wine. There's strawberry, raspberry, red cherries. There's a bit of juniper, rosemary, a bit of oak. Oak's showing as vanilla, a bit of toast, smoke. Then if there's any treasury aromas, think of what it tastes like. Maybe there's some leather, some caramel, some gaminess. Keep in the habit of tasting something and breaking it down into individual components. This practice will help you taste wine better in the long run too. The last thing you can do is to try different wines. Keep trying different wines, different varieties, different countries, different regions, different styles. And every time you taste something new, focus, concentrate and take notes. So the act of tasting is about using your senses to detect the aromas and flavors in food and beverages. Interpreting those sensations and translate that into a vocabulary that everyone can understand. Wine tasting is not something you should practice in isolation. If you want to learn to taste wine, it's not just about wine. It's about all the flavors and aromas you encounter in the world. So guys, that's it for today. Thank you for being here with me. If you like the video, hit like and subscribe. Share with your friends. I'll see you in the next one. Cheers.