9 Steps to Becoming a Better Wine Taster

Updated October 2026

Becoming a better wine taster is less about natural talent than about practice with a purpose: taste under consistent conditions, follow the same structured method each time, write your observations down before you hear anyone else’s, and compare wines side by side so the differences become easier to see. The nine habits below show how.

Start With a Consistent Method

Every habit below works better if you assess each wine the same way. A structured approach moves through four stages:

• Appearance: clarity, intensity, and color.
• Nose: the intensity and character of the aromas.
• Palate: sweetness, acidity, tannin (in red wines), alcohol, body, flavor intensity and characteristics, and finish.
• Conclusions: your reasoned assessment of the wine’s quality.

WSET courses teach this as the WSET Systematic Approach to Tasting®, with more detail added at each level, so use the version that matches your course. For a step-by-step walkthrough, see our guide on how to taste wine.

It also helps to keep two notes on every wine: whether you enjoyed it, and your reasoned assessment of it. Liking a wine is useful information, but it is not the same as analyzing its characteristics.

The Nine Habits

1 – One sip is rarely enough.

Our ability to perceive the nuances of flavor, acidity, and other components in wine depends partly on our condition while tasting. A strong lingering flavor, such as the double cappuccino you just finished, can interfere with what you perceive, and fatigue or a cold can dull your attention and senses.

Start with a neutral palate: rinse with water and pause briefly before tasting. Treat your first sip as an initial impression rather than a settled verdict, and taste again before you decide. If you are unwell or exhausted, extra sips won’t fix it; it is often better to postpone the tasting. (WSET on preparing your palate)

2 – Context is king.

It is not uncommon for a wine lover to say that the greatest wine she has ever tasted was a simple, rustic red poured from a jug at a tiny restaurant in Venice within view of the canal. That same wine may have been utterly forgettable at a chain restaurant across from a gas station.

Context shapes what we perceive, so when you want to evaluate rather than simply enjoy, control what you can:

• Taste in a quiet room with good, neutral lighting and no distracting odors such as cooking smells, perfume, or scented candles.
• Use clean, comparable glasses and serve each wine at an appropriate temperature.
• Record your observations before you see the price, the producer’s reputation, or the back label.

Expectations can be surprisingly powerful. In one well-known study, tasters described a white wine colored red with an odorless dye in the language of red wine. (Morrot, Brochet and Dubourdieu, 2001) These controls reduce some of those influences, though no setup removes bias entirely.

3 – Compare the same grape variety across different regions.

If you have only recently developed a serious interest in wine, there is nothing wrong with focusing on California to hone your skills. But to truly understand a grape such as Chardonnay, you need to taste its different expressions side by side: for example, Chablis and the Côte de Beaune (both in Burgundy) alongside California’s Russian River Valley.

Choose bottles with known differences in oak use and maturation, and look at vintage and producer as well as place. Differences between wines reflect climate, but also winemaking decisions and the year, so avoid attributing every contrast to location alone.

4 – Calibrate with contrasting wines.

If you struggle to judge tannin or acidity, taste wines chosen to show clear contrasts. A young Barolo typically shows high tannin and a Chablis high acidity, but no region is a fixed sensory standard, so ideally ask an educator or experienced retailer to choose bottles that clearly illustrate the point. Include a lower and a middle example alongside the high one, so you can place each wine on the scale your course uses.

Be precise about what you are assessing. Acidity shows up as sourness and how much your mouth waters; tannin as a drying, gripping sensation on your gums and teeth. Keep both separate from the warmth of alcohol and from bitterness, which are easy to confuse with them. Our guide to body in wine covers another structural element that tasters often mix up.

5 – Taste with people you like.

Becoming a better taster is often achieved in a communal environment. If you have a group of wine-loving friends, try gathering for a tasting once a month.

The key is to write your notes individually first, then compare. Ask each person to explain the evidence for their assessment. When you disagree, use it to discover differences in vocabulary or perception rather than treating the majority view as the right answer. Over time you will see where you are proficient and where you need work, and you will build the confidence to describe wines clearly.

No tasting group nearby? Premier Crew™ members can join monthly live virtual Tasting Labs led by NVWA educators. Each session works like a guided tasting group: you taste along at home, then compare your notes with other participants. Sessions use either member-priced tasting kits or widely available bottles you can buy locally.

6 – Taste when you are alert and comfortable.

Choose a time when you feel comfortable and can concentrate. Before tasting, avoid strong or lingering flavors that may interfere with subtle aromas and with your sense of the wine’s balance.

You may have heard that tasting shortly before a meal sharpens your senses. The research is more mixed than that: in one study, hungry participants were more sensitive to a neutral odor, while for a food odor, those who had already eaten performed better. (Stafford and Welbeck, 2011) Effects vary by odor and task, so there is no universal rule that tasting within an hour of a meal makes you more accurate. Instead, use consistent conditions for practice, and pause if your attention or perception begins to fade.

7 – Go grocery shopping.

Becoming a better wine taster means building a sensory memory of aromas and flavors that commonly appear in young and aged wines.

Not sure how to identify star anise, quince, or cassis (blackcurrant)? Visit your local market and build a collection of reference aromas. Use fresh ingredients where practical, and notice how fresh, dried, cooked, and preserved versions of the same fruit smell different. Liqueurs such as crème de cassis can fill gaps, but they also contain alcohol and sugar that change the smell.

Smell each reference while it is labeled, then test yourself without the labels, and connect what you find to the vocabulary you use for wine. Our guide on how to identify wine aromas includes a simple practice exercise.

8 – Read as much as you taste.

Learning to taste wine and learning about wine go hand in hand. If you have suddenly developed an interest in the Rieslings of Germany’s Mosel, immerse yourself in the literature of the region. What makes those wines so distinctive? Reading about grape growing and winemaking helps you understand why a wine tastes the way it does.

If you are studying for an exam, check what your qualification actually asks of you. The WSET Level 3 Award in Wines, for example, assesses how accurately you describe a wine and judge its quality and readiness for drinking; it does not ask you to guess the wine’s origin. Identifying a wine’s grape or origin is part of some other tasting exams, and the requirements differ between qualifications.

For the classic text on how to evaluate wine, see Émile Peynaud’s The Taste of Wine.

9 – Don’t get discouraged.

People differ in sensory sensitivity, experience, and the words they use to describe wine. Researchers sometimes measure taste sensitivity with a bitter compound called PROP, and one study found that wine experts, on average, rated it as more bitter than everyday wine drinkers. (Hayes and Pickering, 2012) But being a so-called “supertaster” is not the same as being an expert: experts in another study described wines more consistently than novices, yet were no better at naming everyday smells. (Croijmans and Majid, 2016)

These differences do not determine who can become a capable taster. Focus on practice with a purpose: compare wines, record your observations, seek useful feedback, and return to the characteristics you find difficult to assess. Progress means becoming more consistent and more precise in explaining what you perceive. If you truly have a passion for wine, the journey is a joy in itself.

A Comparison Exercise to Try

Treat this as a practical learning activity, not a validated training protocol.

1. Choose three Chardonnays selected to illustrate one specific contrast, such as oak influence or acidity.
2. Serve small pours in comparable glasses under consistent conditions, and conceal the bottles.
3. Record appearance, aroma, palate structure, and finish for each wine independently.
4. Compare the strongest differences before revealing the wines.
5. Discuss which contrasts could reflect climate, vintage, or winemaking, and where the evidence remains uncertain.

Make your practice measurable. Give each small flight a clear question, write notes every time, and revisit a wine in a later session without knowing what it is, then compare your two notes. Progress shows up as repeatable assessments and a better ability to explain differences, not as the number of wines you have tasted.

A few practical points: use small pours, have a spittoon and water on hand, take breaks when your concentration drops, and keep glasses and serving temperatures comparable within each exercise.

Keep Learning

Guided tasting with feedback is one of the fastest ways to improve. If you are new to wine, TasteCoach™ Wine Fundamentals is a good starting point; it is included with Premier Crew™ membership, along with the monthly live Tasting Labs, so you can keep practicing with feedback month after month. To build a structured tasting technique, the WSET Level 2 Award in Wines and WSET Level 3 Award in Wines are available online and in person at Napa Valley Wine Academy. And if you are thinking of turning your palate into a profession, our guide on how to become a sommelier explains the career paths.