Local Pros Weigh in on How to Train your Taste Buds and Stock your Cellar
A SurveyMonkey trend story published last fall on wine consumption revealed that 75% of respondents said they drink wine routinely (at least twice a week), with about 38% calling it “a sophisticated activity.” One respondent commented even further, describing wine drinkers as “fancy, conscientious and smart. They know a lot about wine and are able to enjoy it by using their sophisticated taste palates.”
Building your palate takes some drinking practice and what better way to do that than stocking your own cellar? Whether you have a designated wine room or a standalone wine cave, selecting bottles for your current and future enjoyment and having a tasting strategy is “a beautiful learning experience on how wines evolve,” says Gabriella Macari, third-generation director of operations at Macari Vineyards in Mattituck.
Marshall Tilden III, Wine Enthusiast’s, chief revenue and education officer, advises customers on storage options and bottle purchases and says “the biggest problem is people are not looking ahead.” He advises people to think about all the life stages of their wine consumption. “The beauty of this is learning where everybody likes their wine — just because a wine can age for 20 years, doesn’t mean that you’re going to like how it tastes in 20 years,” he said.
For this reason, Melissa Rockwell, director of operations at Sparkling Pointe in Southold, recommends buying bottles in multiples and performing taste tests every so often.
“As you taste and discover, if you really fall in love with something, buy two or three bottles – one to drink now and another that you can go back to and do a taste check to see how it’s evolving, then you can judge how long to keep the third bottle in your cellar.” She recommends investing in a Coravin, a preservation tool that pierces the bottle cork with a hollow needle and extracts wine in small amounts so you can sample the wine without compromising the seal or the wine.
Macari agrees with the multi-bottle approach: “For consumers who really want to build a cellar, it’s an investment, but it’s also a strategy,” she says.
Rockwell, who serves as president of Long Island Wine Country, recommends finding those bottles in your own North Fork back yard by visiting local tasting rooms and getting to know grape varieties and styles. The region offers an opportunity to educate your palate with quality wines that have aging potential, but without the high price tags of unicorn wines.
“Long Island reds have great longevity, especially blends based on Bordeaux varieties,” she said, but she also called out the region’s sparkling wines, noting that those with extended fermentation time in the bottle “age really well, so they are good investments.”
Macari also is very keen on leveraging local sources to build your wine cellar and, at the same time, exercise your taste memory.
“Befriend a wine shop owner or clerk, or a tasting room educator,” she says. “From my perspective, someone who’s doing their job is learning about your tastes — not always recommending wines that they like — so find someone you trust and who can learn your palate.”
Another strategy: join a wine club. Most producers offer them and members do, indeed, have privileges such as specialized tastings, access to highly prized vintages and insider advice on what to drink and what to hold.
“If you use [membership] in tandem with your visits to a wine educator and a tasting room, [collecting] will make more sense,” Macari said. “We’re not just there to throw dates and numbers around, but to offer an approachable way to talk about vintages.”
