Anyone Can Taste Wine (ePub)

If you love wine, this book will give you all the knowledge and self-confidence you need to become a world-class wine taster. It reveals in methodical steps exactly how to acquire essential wine-tasting skills. Cees (it's pronounced 'Case') van Casteren is a brilliant scientist, author, and international wine competition judge, as well as one of the global super-elite (less than 500 top experts worldwide) who have been able to earn the supreme title, Master of Wine.

Anyone Can Taste Wine first appeared in Dutch and instantly established itself in the Netherlands as far and away the most authoritative and popular book on the subject.

From the book's introductory chapter:

“Many people typically believe that the ability to taste comes from some kind of inborn, innate aptitude—as though 'taste' were a genetic hand-me-down—something that you either have, or you don't have. But that's not true.
“Wine tasting is a skill. Anyone can taste wine, as long as they have normally functioning senses of smell and taste. Anyone (that is) who is motivated to learn and practice—a lot—can become a good wine taster. Genes or no genes.
“Much of this skill will involve awareness of how to train your senses. While there are genetic differences between humans in terms of smelling and tasting, these innate differences do not make one taster better than another. Research by taste professor Linda Bartoshuk, previously at the University of Yale, has shown that a wine taster's ability to taste is mainly due to the amount of training that the taster has experienced. Specifically, exercises dedicated to recognizing wine scents and developing an attendant wine language are the main contributing factors in developing wine tasting abilities. The difficulty that most besets inexperienced tasters is a lack of suitable vocabulary that would enable them to name and describe the flavors and scents that they taste and smell. This vital skill, being able to describe flavors and aromas in words, remains a common problem, even for the most experienced of wine tasters. According to Professor Tim Jacob of Cardiff University, a method that will enable you to associate smells and flavors with a suitable repertoire of words will contribute greatly to the enhancement of tasting skills . . . that is . . . you just need a method. The more user-friendly, the easier it will be to learn and remember.
And that's exactly what I realized at the start of my Master of Wine studies. The method had to be user-friendly in order to help me to remember all relevant aspects for tasting, describing, and analyzing the wine. In search of these aspects, I started with . . . the wine itself. With this fascinating blend of water (colorless, odorless, tasteless), alcohol (colorless, odorless, slightly sweet), acids, sugars, pigments, aromas, and tannins which together give wine its color, smell, and taste.
“And I was quite quick to learn that this very curious and complex combination of color, aromas, alcohol, acids, sugars and tannins actually were the 'relevant aspects' I was looking for, and therefore the targets of my attention while developing a method. The answer to my quest was indeed in the wine itself!”



Editorial Reviews


“For anyone who loves wine, this book is a delight to read. Very educational with beautiful easy to understand tasting methods and graphics. I wish I had had this book when I was studying for the MW exam. An excellent read for wine students and wine lovers alike.”

—DR. LIZ THACH MW


“Cees is a brilliant taster, but just as importantly, he knows how to communicate his knowledge clearly and with real insight. Ordinary wine drinkers will get a lot out of this book, but I learnt a lot from it too—and I've been tasting wine professionally for thirty-five years.”

—TIM ATKIN MW


“Cees has put his expertise and experience into producing a fantastic educational guide for all wine enthusiasts. It is an invaluable resource for all wine students to guide and improve wine appreciation and assessment. A seriously good wine book to engage with and learn, in a very approachable style.”

—ALISON CTERCTEKO MW


“I wish this book had been available when I was doing my own Master of Wine study. Cees has done an excellent job of clarifying what can be a complicated process and, on top of that, has injected a sense of fun and pleasure into it. I happily recommend this book to anyone interested in the art and science of tasting wine.”

—EMMA JENKINS MW


“In this thoughtful and highly original book, Cees van Casteren presents his structured and very practical framework for blind tasting wine—this isn't just for students of wine, but will be invaluable for anyone who tastes wine on a regular basis.”

—JAMIE GOODE, UK wine expert


“Cees takes the reader on the journey of his conquest of wine tasting expertise, a trip well-worth joining since his method helped him scale the highest credentials in the trade. Cees's book serves as a compass to help both novice and expert navigate easier in what at times appear as uncharted waters.”

—IGOR RYJENKOV MW