By |

The Biology, Psychology, and Philosophy of Wine Tasting

Kandinsky, Composition VII (1913). The mind at work.

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

What happens when a novice and an expert taste wine? Is it simply a matter of the wine impressing itself onto their senses? Or does the expert enjoy a different wine?

To answer this question, we need to begin with the biology of taste.

The Biology of Wine Tasting

Our sense of taste arises from specialised sensory cells in taste buds on the tongue, hard and soft palate, and pharynx. There are around five thousand taste buds in the mouth, each with fifty to one hundred of these sensory cells, or chemoreceptors. Together, these chemoreceptors enable us to distinguish five basic or fundamental tastes: alkaloids and other compounds as bitterness, sugars as sweetness, salts as saltiness, acids as sourness, and amino acids as umami or savouriness. Although some parts of the tongue are more sensitive to certain tastes than others, the ‘tongue map’ that divides the tongue into discrete tasting areas very much overstates the case.

Chemical sense of taste is supported by the physical and chemical sensation of the liquid in the mouth, or mouthfeel. The physical sense of touch, which is responsive to dissolved particles as small as three microns, transmits the texture and temperature of the wine through specialised mechanoreceptors and thermoreceptors. The prickle of dissolved carbon dioxide is conveyed by chemesthesis, the same sense or sensibility by which chemical irritants such as chilli or mustard register their fieriness—not through taste, but through provocation.

Sense of smell, or olfaction—which is even more important—is triggered by airborne chemicals acting on olfactory receptors on the tiny hair-like cilia of olfactory receptor neurons in the nasal epithelium. The axons of these olfactory receptor neurons form the olfactory nerve (cranial nerve I), which courses up through the sieve-like cribriform plate of the skull to synapse in the olfactory bulb of the brain. There are around four hundred types of olfactory receptor, which, through a form of combinatorial processing, are capable of discerning several thousand aromas. Sensitivity to aromas can differ significantly, both from one aroma to another and from one individual to the next, with some aromas detectable in concentrations one hundred million times smaller than others.

The olfactory apparatus can be stimulated orthonasally, through the nostrils, or retronasally, from within the mouth and pharynx. Much ‘tasting’ actually takes place retronasally, which is why a runny nose can leave our food and wine tasting of cardboard.

What we call ‘taste’ is therefore much more than taste: it is also touch, temperature, chemesthesis, and, above all, olfaction. But this still leaves out the most important organ of all: the brain.

The Psychology of Wine Tasting

The ‘flavour’ of a wine is an integrated interpretation by the brain of all the various sensory stimuli detailed above. Upon tasting the wine, the brain experiences a sensory overload, whence the difficulty in picking out individual aromas and flavours. To ease its task, it relies heavily on preconceptions (including injurious ones, i.e. prejudices), context, and memory to inform its interpretation of the sensory stimuli.

The effect of expectation is so strong that, if a white wine with an aroma of lemons and apples is dyed red with food colourings, most people will describe red berry aromas; and if an ordinary table wine is served in a bottle labelled ‘Grand Cru’, most people will praise it as ‘balanced’, ‘complex’, and such-like.

The olfactory bulb is closely connected to the limbic system, an area of the brain linked with emotions and memories. Smells and tastes can trigger strong emotions and vivid memories that bias our perception of the wine. Conversely, our emotional state affects our appreciation of sensory stimuli, which explains why wine tastes better in good company or why champagne has it easy.

Blind tasting can help us overcome all these biases, first, by removing a number of their sources, and, second, by inviting us to focus on the wine itself. Paradoxically, by depriving ourselves of cues—grape variety, region, vintage, price, reputation, memories associated with the wine—we become a lot more attentive to the information that remains.

The Philosophy of Wine Tasting

In engaging with a wine, blind tasters activate not only the limbic system, but also areas of the brain responsible for cognition, which is a conscious, higher-order function. This process can be assisted and developed by writing tasting notes that seek to accurately describe the sensations produced by the wine. Given the limitations of language in accurately describing our sensations, this, like writing poetry, is no mean feat.

Nonetheless, language is by far the best tool at our disposal for communicating our experiences to others and, indeed, to ourselves. The practice of consciously describing the sensations produced by wine trains the mind and, over time, makes it much easier to taste and think about taste. As Wittgenstein famously remarked, ‘The limits of my language are the limits of my world.’

But does the language of wine merely enable us to describe what we taste, or does it enable us to taste more in the first place? Learning to taste involves learning what to attend to, how to discriminate, how to compare, and how to remember. What was once an undifferentiated sensation gradually resolves into parts, patterns, and relationships. Language does not merely label the world: often it helps us to notice it.

Although some people do have a higher density of taste buds, this does not necessarily make them better wine tasters. To use a computing analogy, tasting is not so much a function of the hardware (the sensory apparatus) as it is of the software (the mind or brain). That’s why I often say we taste far more with our brains than with our mouth and nose. Regardless of the sensitivity of their tasting apparatus, untutored tasters struggle to ‘get their head round’ more complex wines, and, as a result, derive greater enjoyment from simpler wines.

Just as an untrained ear can struggle with complex music, an untutored palate can struggle with complex wine. To the beginner, it can seem as though the more experienced tasters are making it up. But with enough experience and training, almost anyone can turn into a wine expert.

Think again of Kandinsky’s Composition VII. To an untutored eye, it can seem like a bewildering profusion of colours and forms. With sustained attention, relationships, rhythms, tensions, and depths begin to emerge. The painting has not changed.

If a novice comes to dinner, open something you can both enjoy. But keep your best Burgundy for experienced tasters such as me.

Continue Exploring

If this essay spoke to you, you might look into The Concise Guide to Wine and Blind Tasting.

You may also enjoy

Explore all Wine & Blind Tasting resources

By |

The Surprising Way to Taste Wine More Honestly—and Enjoy It More

Contemplative woman with a wine glass looking out onto a vineyard and the world beyond
Blind tasting begins with wine. It ends by changing the way we pay attention to the world.

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

Most people assume that blind tasting is about showing off. They picture wine experts sniffing theatrically at a glass before announcing, ‘Château Margaux 1999’ to the admiration—or irritation—of everyone around the table.

In reality, blind tasting is almost the opposite. Its purpose is not to demonstrate superior knowledge, but to remove everything that gets in the way of seeing the wine clearly. Far from being an affectation, it is the fairest, most honest, and ultimately most enjoyable way of tasting wine.

It also teaches us something unexpected: not only about wine, but about the workings of the human mind.

Allow me to explain.

Pure Objectivity

Wine is a combination of acids, alcohols, sugars, polyphenols, and other biochemicals—up to one thousand of them. Together, they create its colour, aromas, flavours, texture, and structure. Grape variety, soil, climate, viticulture, winemaking, and ageing all leave their imprint on the liquid in the glass, and the experienced taster learns to read these clues.

Unfortunately, we rarely taste wine alone.

Instead, we taste the label, the bottle, the reputation of the producer, the prestige of the region, the price on the shelf, the opinions of critics, and even our own expectations. We may think, ‘I once had a wonderful holiday in this vineyard,’ or, ‘I don’t like Sauvignon Blanc.’ We may be influenced by the grandeur of a château, the atmosphere of a restaurant, or even the temperature of the room. All these things can enrich our enjoyment of wine. But they can also distort our judgement.

Blind tasting strips these influences away. The wine is served anonymously in a standard glass, ideally in a neutral setting, without flourish or fanfare. Nothing remains except the liquid itself.

Rather than asking whether we like a famous label or a prestigious appellation, we ask a much simpler—and much more interesting—question: What is actually in the glass?

Beyond Objectivity

Blind tasting is often presented as a way of eliminating bias. It is certainly that. But reducing prejudice is only the beginning.

There is immense pleasure in focusing entirely on the wines before us; in stretching and refining our senses; in applying judgement rather than preconception; in searching our memories for forgotten aromas and flavours; in comparing our impressions with those of fellow tasters; in getting it exactly right, approximately right, or even wrong for the right reasons. Above all, there is the pleasure of discussing the wine and learning not only about that particular bottle but about wine itself.

Blind tasting encourages curiosity over certainty. Instead of asking whether we guessed correctly, we begin to ask why a wine tasted as it did. Every bottle becomes an opportunity to learn.

In refining their senses and aesthetic judgement, blind tasters become much more conscious of the richness not only of wine but also of other potentially complex beverages such as tea, coffee, and spirits, and, by extension, the aromas and flavours in food, the scents in the air, and the play of light in the world.

For life is consciousness, and consciousness is life.

Wine and Consciousness

In philosophy, phenomenology is the study of the structures of conscious experience. Blind tasting is phenomenology in one of its purest forms. It returns us from our ideas about the world to the world itself, while revealing just how readily the mind colours our experience with expectation, memory, and suggestion.

Wine, then, becomes a remarkable instrument for studying not only the world but ourselves.

The more practical among you may rest assured that blind tasting also serves more immediate purposes. Winemakers need to taste a wine as they are making it; buyers before adding it to their stocks; journalists, critics, and sommeliers before recommending it to their readers and patrons; and wine lovers before sharing it with their friends. Blind tasting also forms the basis of many wine qualifications and competitions, and may even open the door to a rewarding career in the wine trade.

‘My genius,’ wrote Nietzsche, ‘is in my nostrils.’ Many years ago, I called the police to force entry into a neighbour’s house, on the basis that I could smell through the letterbox that the neighbour had died—rather than just gone away, as everyone else thought.

Our senses are capable of far more than most of us ever ask of them. Blind tasting begins with wine. It ends by changing the way we pay attention to the world.

Continue Exploring

If you enjoyed this article, you might also enjoy my book The Concise Guide to Wine and Blind Tasting, which explores not only how to taste wine, but why it matters. Combining practical guidance with philosophy, psychology, and the science of perception, it will help you taste with greater confidence, objectivity, and enjoyment.

You may also enjoy

In wine

In cognition

Explore all Wine & Blind Tasting resources

By |

Why the Greeks Thought Wine Deserved a God

Sick Bacchus, by Caravaggio
Caravaggio’s Young Sick Bacchus (in fact, a self-portrait) — To the Greeks, wine was not merely a drink but an affirmation of life in the face of death.

By Dr Neel Burton — Psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine writer; Fellow of Green Templeton College, University of Oxford; author of over twenty books.

Would you turn the other cheek? Not that cheek. Discover the last and most unusual of the Olympian gods.

Dionysus was the god of wine, regeneration, fertility, ritual madness, ecstasy, theatre, and pleasure, among others. In certain times and places, or among certain people, he was the most important god—more important, even, than Zeus. Owing to his hold on the imagination, there is much mythical material surrounding him.

Dionysus was the son of Zeus and Semele, one of the four daughters of Cadmus. When Semele was pregnant with Dionysus, a jealous Hera persuaded her to ask Zeus to reveal himself to her ‘as he does to his wife’. Zeus reluctantly obliged, leading Semele to die from one of his thunderbolts. Zeus succeeded in saving his son from her womb, and stitched him into his thigh (probably a euphemism for his testicle)—whence the Dionysian epithet dimētōr, ‘of two mothers’, ‘twice-born’.

Following this second birth, Hermes placed Dionysus into the care of his aunt Ino and her husband Athamas, asking them to bring him up as a girl. Even in this guise, Hera recognised him and inflicted madness upon Ino and Athamas, who killed their children before killing themselves. To protect him, Zeus turned Dionysus into a kid, which Hermes spirited to the satyr Silenus and the mænads of Mount Nysa. Silenus became his tutor, and the centaur Chiron completed his education.

After the young Dionysus discovered the magical vine, Hera drove him mad. He roamed the world to escape from her while teaching mortals the secrets of winemaking. He travelled to Egypt and Syria, and even led a campaign into India. According to the historian Diodorus Siculus (d. 30 BCE), Dionysus taught all the known world how to make wine—except for Britain and Æthiopia. In Phrygia, he met the mother goddess Cybele, who taught him the mysteries and, by channelling it, cured him of his madness. He then established his cult and rites, inspired by those of Cybele.

While in Phrygia, Silenus wandered off drunk and was carried to King Midas. When Dionysus came to collect him, he offered Midas any wish. Midas asked for the power to turn whatever he touched into gold. Before dinner, he had turned every bush in his famed rose garden to gold. But he was horrified when his food and wine also turned to gold. His daughter tried to comfort him, but she too suffered the same fate. When Midas begged to be rescued, Dionysus told him to bathe in the River Pactolus, the golden sands of which later became the source of Croesus’ fabulous wealth.

Dionysus returned to Greece in a triumphal procession of satyrs and mænads. However, his wild and alien cult met with resistance. In Thrace, King Lycurgus captured his followers and drove Dionysus into the sea. Dionysus visited madness on Lycurgus—leading him to kill his wife and son and chop off his own legs in the belief that they were vines.

In his own city of Thebes, Dionysus was opposed by his cousin Pentheus, the son of Agave. The seer Tiresias urged Pentheus to embrace Dionysus, warning him, ‘Your blood [will be] poured out and defile the woods and your mother and sisters…’ But Pentheus forbade his worship, after which the women of Thebes lost their minds and left their homes to cavort in a frenzy on Mount Cithæron. Pentheus hid in a tree to spy on them, but the daughters of Cadmus found him and tore him apart from limb to limb. Agave tore off his head, put it on a pike, and took it to Cadmus—before realising what she had done.

Some time later, Dionysus chartered a ship manned by Tyrrhenian mercenaries. Believing him to be the son of a rich man, they sailed towards Asia with the intention of ransoming him. When they bound him to the mast, the bonds simply fell away. The helmsman Acoetes warned that this was no ordinary man, but the captain failed to change course. Dionysus filled the vessel with ivy and flute song, leading the mercenaries to lose their minds and leap into the sea. He then turned them into dolphins, sparing only Acoetes, who bore witness to his divinity.

On Naxos, Dionysus found Ariadne, who had been abandoned there by Theseus. Dionysus had countless lovers, both male and female, but married only Ariadne, giving her a crown and fixing it into the heavens as the constellation Corona. He then travelled to Hades to bring back his mother Semele, and all three ascended to Olympus.

The Meaning of Dionysus

Dionysus’ origins are shrouded in the mists of time, and it may be that he is a composite of a number of similar gods from far-flung times and places. His name is first attested on tablets recovered from Mycenæan Pylos, although its etymology is uncertain. The Greeks had many other names or epithets for him, including Androgynos, Bromios [Thunderer], Eleuthereus [Liberator], and Tauros [Bull].

Whatever his origins, Dionysus came to symbolise the impulsive, the chaotic, and everything that escapes human reason and control—and, by extension, nature and its vitality. Like nature, he is both creation and destruction, representing on the one hand growth and fertility and on the other wine and dissolution. He dissolves the boundaries between reason and instinct, civilisation and nature, life and death, the human and the divine. As twice-born and returned from Hades, he crosses and re-crosses the boundary between life and death. He reminds us, as does the hero, that life is at its fullest in the jaws of death.

Much of his mythology is about establishing himself as a god, suggesting that he may in part be rooted in a historical figure. Although the Greeks, especially Greek men, resisted his alien and anarchic cult, he rose to become one of the principal Olympian gods.

Dionysus was the last of the twelve Olympian gods to arrive, and the only one with a mortal parent—embodying, like wine itself, the duality between the human and the divine.

He rode in a chariot drawn by big cats and accompanied by an ecstatic retinue, or thíasos, of erect satyrs and frenzied mænads. Under the influence of the god and his wine, satyrs and mænads tore apart sacrificial animals and ate them raw. The Greeks honoured Dionysus in several annual festivals, including the City Dionysia, which became the premier competition for playwrights in Athens. The thíasos, especially the triumphal procession on Dionysus’ return to Greece, served as a model for later Dionysian processions and, according to Pliny the Elder, even the Roman Triumph.

Dionysus appears in early Greek art as a bearded man, but later evolves into an alluring and androgynous youth. His attributes include the thyrsus, a fennel staff tipped with a pinecone; the kantharos, a drinking cup with high handles; the vine and ivy; the snake; and the bull.

For Sigmund Freud, Dionysus and his thíasos symbolised the id, the deep, primitive, and instinctual part of the mind. Freud requested that his ashes be preserved in an Ancient Greek krater painted with Dionysian scenes—where they remain to this day.

To Dionysus, the most important individual in his train was Silenus, the wisest and, not coincidentally, the most drunken of his followers. The Midas myth has become famous the world over and is a powerful way of making the point that the true wealth of life resides in life itself. Assuming we have a modest amount, it is not generally a lack of funds but a lack of soul, or lack of love, that keeps us from living.

Silenus is also associated with the bleak teaching that the best thing for human beings is never to have been born, and the next best to die as soon as possible. Plato alludes to this ‘Wisdom of Silenus’ but thinks it dangerous and refrains from spelling it out too clearly. In Plato’s Symposium, Alcibiades compares Socrates to Silenus for being ugly outside but beautiful inside.

In his earliest work, The Birth of Tragedy (1872), Nietzsche popularised a dichotomy between Apollo and Dionysus. The Apollonian stands for light, reason, order, and individuation, whereas the Dionysian is all about darkness, irrationality, chaos, and dissociation. The Dionysian impulse, similar to Freud’s concept of the id or Jung’s concept of the shadow, is a primal force that demands to be acknowledged and integrated.

Dionysus himself lost his mind until he mastered the mysteries, after which he became a model of sanity or even hypersanity and established his cult. If too much of the Dionysian is destructive, too much of the Apollonian is stultifying, whereas a balance of the two unleashes the best of both.

Nietzsche argued that the Ancient Greeks achieved that rare balance of the Apollonian and Dionysian, notably in the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles, which, by providing a paradigm of existential suffering, enabled people to experience a profound sense of release and escape. But owing to the influence of rationalists such as Socrates and Plato, the Apollonian took over, and European culture came to lack passion and vitality.

The dichotomy between Apollo and Dionysus is, however, a modern one. The Greeks, if anything, tended to assimilate them: Like Apollo, Dionysus was said to have the gift of prophecy, and even to inhabit the Temple of Apollo at Delphi during Apollo’s winter absence.

The Dionysian Mysteries were related to the Orphic and Osirian Mysteries. Orphics held the ‘first Dionysus’, or Zagreus, to have been torn apart and eaten by the Titans before being reborn through Semele. They worshipped Dionysus as a chthonic aspect of Zeus and connected him with the reincarnation and immortality which they sought for themselves.

Dionysus also has much in common with Jesus Christ: a divine father, a mortal mother, and a rebirth or resurrection. Both carried a revolutionary message of salvation, sought to establish a following on earth before ascending to heaven, and roamed about performing miracles. Still today, followers of Jesus ritually eat his flesh and drink his blood in the bread and wine of the eucharist.

Of course, Dionysus was never likely to turn the other cheek—or, at least, not that cheek—but he was, unusually among the Olympian gods, a good friend to humankind.

If Prometheus gave us fire, Dionysus gave us wine, the inner fire which frees the mind and dissolves the ego along with all of its problems. Wine brings us together, helps us be together, and be inventive together, as in the Greek symposia and Roman convivia, in which measured drinking could lead to expansive elation and creative association and the voicing of disruptive ideas and perspectives.

It can be no coincidence that, on all four sides, in all four corners, the borders of the Roman Empire stopped where wine could no longer be made.

Life without wine would be a pale shadow of itself. I raise my glass to Dionysus.

Continue Exploring

If you enjoyed this article, you might look into The Meaning of Myth, which contains the full chapter on Dionysus, and The Concise Guide to Wine and Blind Tasting, on the appreciation, psychology, and philosophy of wine.

You may also enjoy

In wine

In myth

Elsewhere on this site

Explore all Mythology essays

Explore all Wine & Blind Tasting resources