Wine Placement in Tasting

When tasting many wines at a tasting, where a wine actually sits in the lineup can affect your perception of it. This is a common problem. Say you’ve just tasted an absolutely fabulous wine and the one that follows is only good. Chances are you’ll perceive it as less than “good” merely because you’ve set a mental benchmark with the great wine and basically conditioned your palate to greatness. By the same token, if you’ve just tasted a very simple or mediocre wine and the one following is just good, you’ll probably think it’s actually better than it is. It’s only human nature to compare and cleaning your palate between wines with water or a bite of dry biscuit or bread can help reduce this effect.