This multi-part series is designed for food and wine professionals, wine judges, wine educators, wine and food journalists, wine students and anyone who relies on their senses to assess, evaluate, critique and/or write about wine and food. 

There are four parts to this series, each with three sessions.

Please work through the course at your own pace. You can download the speakers' presentations by using the 'Download PDF' tabs below the video.

In this section Jamie Goode will present a well-rounded and measured valuation of all the elements that factor into wine evaluation: the physiology, psychology, and neurobiology of flavour perception, the art of accurately describing our sensory perceptions, the issue of tasting expertise and the subjectivity and objectivity of wine assessment. By focusing on the process, you will be much more aware of the importance of your senses and word choice when evaluating and describing wine. 

The language of wine  

One of the challenges of learning about wine is describing our perceptions of wine in words. In the wine world we do this all the time, but it’s really difficult. Here, I explore the language of wine and how it has evolved. I’ll explore the concept of linguistic relativity, and draw on some interesting cross-cultural work. Do other cultures have the same difficulty in describing smells and tastes? Does our language shape our perception? And what are the best ways to describe wines in words?  

From molecules to perception  

Wine is made of lots of chemicals, and some of them have tastes and smells. But when we taste wine, we aren’t acting like measuring devices. In this lecture I look at the physiology, psychology and neurobiology of flavour perception. There’s a lot that happens to the signals from the nose and mouth before we experience the flavour of wine, and this is highly relevant to the way that we assess wine. I’ll also tackle the thorny issue of individual differences in taste and smell, and how this might affect the taste of wine.   

  

Made or born?  

  

This talk looks at the science of wine expertise. Are some people naturally more gifted at tasting than others? Or is wine tasting about learning to taste, and gaining experience. And how do experts differ from novices, when it comes to tasting? I’ll also look at the aesthetics of wine: how do we decide which wines are best? Finally, there will be discussion about subjectivity and objectivity in wine tasting.  

Jamie Goode is a London-based winewriter who is currently wine columnist with UK national newspaper The Sunday Express. As well as writing he also lectures and judges wine.

He won the 2007 Glenfiddich Wine Writer of the year award, and contributes regularly to a range of publications including The World of Fine Wine, Noble Rot, Wine and Spirits (USA), Wine Business International, Drinks International, Wines and Vines and Vine Pair. His first book, Wine Science, won the Glenfiddich Award for Drinks Book in 2006, and a second edition was released in 2014. Jamie has also made numerous presentations and lectures, conducted many tastings and is an established wine judge (co-chair for the International Wine Challenge, among others). He was one of the organizers for the International Sparkling Wine Symposium (March 2009, November 2011, November 2013). I Taste Red, published in 2016, won the Roederer Award in 2017.

Jamie came to wine writing by a rather convoluted route, via a PhD in plant biology and several years of working as a book editor, before he began publishing wineanorak. com, which is now one of the leading wine websites. He has also appeared on TV (Richard and Judy, Sky News, BBC1, BBC Breakfast, BBC News Channel and Channel 5 News).