Has your taste in wine changed over the years?

[foodie52]

I'm not talking about the becoming more "wine aware" with age....I kow that years ago I drank mostly sweet whites.

What I'd like to know is, over the years, does one's palate change enough so that one prefers one style of wine or one grape over another?

[helenjp]

I'm not a connoisseur, just an interested low-life, but my tastes in wine seem to have changed in two ways.

A tolerance for tannin etc. probably comes from the general movement from sweet/light to sour/bitter that comes with age. I don't think there's anything juvenile about disliking "fierce" wines when you are younger, it's just the truth that my 40 year old sense of smell and taste is blunter than a younger drinker's.

I don't know that my preferences have changed so much as broadened. I really don't want total consistency of quality in every bottle -- I really look forward to what each bottle will show me. I think that search has taken me away from blends, because blends are about drinkability and consistency. I still buy and serve blends, but when I'm just indulging myself, it's all about curiosity!

[Craig Camp]

I would say taste and preferences always change with time and experience - the same with music, art, food and all things defined by ones own personal taste.

If anything has changed in my palate over the years it is now that I have little tolerance for over-extracted or heavily oaked wines.

[Boris_A]

If anything has changed in my palate over the years it is now that I have little tolerance for over-extracted or heavily oaked wines.

I have experienced a similar development, and I can almost track it down to a single event:

when I opened my first bottle of Brunels Châteauneuf "Cuvée des Generation" 1995. There it was. A Burgundian style "southern"wine with (visibly) little extract and very smooth tannins, a rather light colour and tons of complex flavours. For me, it was like a sudden enlightment: to leave out everything what's not needed (much extraction, oak) and still have a great red wine of enomous proportions.

[budrichard]

My taste in individual wines has not changed in about 30 years. I still purchase Geman and French wines(of course Burgandies due to the pricing are now rareties)What has changed is my tolerance for poor wine and wine snobs. Poor wine now gets consigned immediately for cooking or in the case of really bad wine, it goes down the drain. Wine snobs are for the most part completely ignored.

Wine Snob = A person that spends more time talking, writing and describing a wine in infinite detail and with nuances that one cannot begin to perceive than the time it takes for me to drink a glass of the wine!-Dick

[balex]

That is a Wine GEEK: a completly different creature. A wine snob is someone who is more concerned with the reputation of the wine, and what its scores are in WA and WS and how fashionable it is, than with how good it is. And you are right -- ignore them!

[Marlene]

Mine have changed. Until I got pregnant, I was a white wine only kind of girl. I now drink reds almost exclusively. I've been very partial to Shirazes over the years, but recently, I find myself going for the Amarones more and more often.

[foodie52]

Right now, I love tempranillos.

So....that leads to another question. If I love tempranillos this year, what are the chances that I'll find them just as good in say, 5 years from now? Are there flavor "nuances" that we non-wine-snobs might recognize as changing over the years depending on weather, climate changes, etc?

[madziast]

I would say taste and preferences always change with time and experience - the same with music, art, food and all things defined by ones own personal taste.

If anything has changed in my palate over the years it is now that I have little tolerance for over-extracted or heavily oaked wines.

I couldn't agree more on both counts. I also noticed that the more wine I drink, the more complex wine I want. Certain wines I used to like a few years ago are boring to me now.

[Cusina]

I'm still in the learning curve and so my tastes have changed dramatically over the past 10 years and I expect them to continue to do so. For example, this thread is the first time I've even read the word tempranillo, but now I feel the need to try one.

[futronic]

I'd have to say that my taste hasn't changed significantly since I started drinking wine. I've always been more partial to Old World wines, as they are more often than not food friendly. 70-75% of my cellar consists of Italian wine and includes everything from the three Bs (Barolo, Barbaresco, and Brunello), to Amarone, Chianti, Aglianico, Barbera, Dolcetto, etc.

Although I have some Australian wine in my cellar, it's not a significant portion of it. I tend to prefer more elegant, refined wines over the OTT (over-the-top), heavily extracted fruit bombs that Robert Parker raves over. I like my wine to compliment the meal, to form a synergy with it. I don't want the wine to BE the meal.

One area that I have started to enjoy more is the Rhone - both North and South. Hermitage, Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Gigondas, Cotes-du-Rhone, are all regions that I like.

Some people ask me why I rarely show interest in wines from California. Although I've had the opportunity to taste some excellent wine from top producers, they really don't suit my palate, even if there was nothing technically wrong with what was in the glass. That combined with the fact that buying California wine in Ontario is prohibitively expensive and that we rarely see anything of exceptional quality under $100CAD is extra incentive to look elsewhere to spend my wine budget.

[LOS]

My taste in wine has definitely changed. I no longer am impressed by high extract and can no longer tolerate low acidity. IME, this is a common progression among winelovers, but it is by no means universal.

[Brad Ballinger]

Mine as changed in a pattern similar to that of a couple of people who have already responded. I'm much more of a rockhead and acidhead than I used to be. There are still some bottles in the cellar I will look at and ask "What was I thinking?"

Although, I'm nowhere near the end ov evolution, there has been a sort of leveling off. The mutations from the past are becoming more and more subtle.

[Andre]

My taste has developed over the years but did not change.

A tricky question that deserves much thought over a few bottles.....