The Art of Tasting: From the Vineyard to the Blind Tasting Table with Børsen

As a Champagne producer and winemaker, I believe one of the most important skills we can develop is our palate. And like any skill, it needs to be exercised constantly, challenged regularly and exposed to as many different wines as possible.

In Champagne, tasting is not simply about evaluating a finished bottle. It is an essential part of every stage of winemaking, beginning in the vineyard, long before the grapes are harvested.

Our tasting journey at Champagne Les Cinq Filles follows the natural evolution of the wine:

1. In the vineyard: We taste grapes as they ripen, evaluating their acidity, sweetness, aromatic development and phenolic maturity to help determine the ideal harvest date.
2. At pressing: We taste the freshly pressed must, assessing its purity, balance, acidity and the differences between pressing fractions.
3. During alcoholic fermentation: We follow the transformation of grape juice into wine, observing how aromas, texture and structure develop.
4. After alcoholic fermentation: We taste the young still wines, evaluating their character, balance and potential, including the influence of malolactic fermentation where applicable.
5. During settling and clarification: We continue tasting as the wines become clearer and more expressive, assessing their evolution and identifying their potential role in future blends.
6. Before winter maturation: We evaluate the young base wines from different villages, vineyards, grape varieties and fermentation vessels before they settle into their winter resting period.
7. During blending and maturation: We taste again to understand how individual wines develop, how reserve wines contribute complexity and how different components may complement one another in a future Champagne.
8. After bottling and secondary fermentation: We follow the wine’s transformation through its second fermentation, ageing on lees and eventual disgorgement, tasting how time contributes texture, complexity and finesse.

During the first few months following harvest alone, we may taste the same wines repeatedly, observing their remarkable evolution from fresh grape juice to young base wine.

Approximately 99% of my professional tasting is dedicated to Champagne. We constantly compare wines from different villages, terroirs, vintages and stages of development. Each tasting teaches us something about the relationship between the vineyard, the winemaking decisions and the final expression of the wine.

But this is precisely why blind tasting wines outside Champagne is so important.

Participating in Børsen’s wine panel in Copenhagen, where we blind tasted 35 different wines, was a wonderful opportunity to challenge my palate beyond its familiar territory.

As winemakers, we develop an intimate understanding of our own wines. We know their origins, their history and the decisions behind them. Blind tasting removes that knowledge and forces us to rely entirely on our senses.

Tasting 35 wines side by side is a very different discipline from following the evolution of Champagne throughout its production. It requires concentration, an open mind, sensory memory and the ability to evaluate each wine without being influenced by its label, reputation or price.

For me, these two approaches to tasting complement one another beautifully.

In the cellar, we taste to understand how a wine is becoming what it will be. In a blind tasting, we taste to discover what a wine has become.

Both require curiosity, precision and humility.

No matter how many years we spend making or tasting wine, there is always something new to discover.

And that is exactly why I believe we should never stop challenging our palates.

You can view the original article about the tasting on Borsen by clicking here.

Borsen article author: Ole Troesø
Borsen article photo credit: Jonas Pryner Andersen