A Changing Palate - What We Love Today We May Not Love As Much Next Year (A Commentary)

We started drinking wine as a couple in the late nineties and at that time we had, what we consider to be, a fairly unsophisticated palate (some might say we still do).  Back then we tended to enjoy the more typically popular wines.  However, beyond that we had an innate curiosity about what else was out there and we definitely went outside the popular selections.  That got us started down the road of enjoying wine...all wine and making us want to see what that next wine tasted like.  As we have always said, preference absolutely plays a role in your selections once you are in the aisles of the wine shop or liquor store and we were and are no different.  What IS different is what we preferred or gravitated toward when we hit the stores.

Our earliest preferences revolved around oaky and buttery Australian Chardonnay, powerful Cabernet Sauvignon, and bold Shiraz also from Australia (price being a main contributing factor when you are young and broke - that is to say that Chris was broke....Shannon was flush with cash).  We used to love Butterfly Ridge Chardonnay and Jacob's Creek Shiraz Cabernet among many others.  As we transitioned into the new century and living in South Florida our preferences transitioned to trying more American wines.  The beauty of living in the United States as opposed to Canada is the relative price of wine, which goes down to about 50% to 60% of our cost up here which is why we spent a good deal of our time trying a new wine or two or three each week.  Shannon was a meticulous recorder of tasting notes (pages and pages of them) which makes for great memories when we review what we were drinking (and thinking) back then.  Preference-wise in the early to mid-two thousands we were still into Australian Shiraz but started loving California Cabernet, and Argentinean Malbec.  We really were all over the place due to the vast selection of wines and awesome prices.  $10 will really buy you a lot in the USA and $20?....forget about it.  We got the chance to try a lot of American wines from Producers like Rabbit Ridge, Clos Du Bois, DeLoach, Hogue, Pepperwood Grove, among many, many, many others.  There were a lot of great wines especially Zinfandel.  We really got into big luscious Zin's and Pinot Noir of course (thank you Sideways).

Nowadays, we have a lot more breadth to our palate where we spend a lot more time enjoying white wines and our red wine palate is now focused on more obscure and funky varieties like Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Carmenere, Mencia, AND we are back on Merlot (no thanks to you Sideways).  If you follow our posts or if you go back into our Archives you will see that trend holds true.  We never really forget our past preferences and we always have room for a great California Cab Sauv but our horizons certainly have broadened.  Now as far as whites are concerned we are really enjoying more crisp acidic wines like Sauvignon Blanc (especially the New Zealand version) and some more unique white varieties like Torrontés and Albariño among many others.  Even Riesling and Gewürztraminer are in the mix these days.

It is so funny to see how your palate changes over time, maybe someday we will go back where we started and then again maybe not.  Who knows?  Either way our mantra has always been to experiment and to try something new every time because you never know where the next gem may be.  Our tasting pattern means that we rarely have any given wine more than once and beyond that there are only those very few that we have maybe a few times.  That said, we have our exceptions (see Org de Rac Merlot in 2012).  The key to all of this is that openness to try new things.  If you don't like something, then you never have to try it again but the wondrous thing that can happen is you find that jewel in the crown that makes your soul and taste buds sing.

Main message for this post.....the next time you are at the wine shop try something you have never had before that stays in your price range.  Maybe you will be pleasantly surprised.

Keep on tasting!

Chris & Shannon