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Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Blink, talks about the difficulty experienced by the average consumer in remembering with precision the exact nuances of what he has tasted. As a species, we are much better at visual or acoustic recognition. This is no surprise: survival depends on the acquisition of these skills.
As we become more sophisticated, our skill sets change. In societies with low levels of literacy people memorise poems and speeches they have heard someone reading out loud only once. That aptitude diminishes as communities acquire writing and reading skills and there is less dependence on oral/aural recall. As a species, we have experienced a similar attrition in the internet age: it seems that with information readily available online, we store less in our own hard drives.
The problem with taste memory is not that we lack one, but that, for the average human being, there’s very little need to make use of it. We manage with familiar tastes and familiar aromas (which are often the same thing). We battle when we encounter them out of context.
Many years ago I conducted research to test the loss of olfactory acuity in the pressurised cabin of a jetliner. I used specially prepared aromas, and respondents were asked to recognise and rate their intensity on the ground and again in the air. There was nothing very complicated about this: sniff the aroma of a banana or cherry on the ground and then again, some hours later, in the air. Except that even the task of identifying the smell of a banana was a challenge for many subjects. They know what a banana should smell like when they are tasting it, but cannot always connect the aroma with the object — when the fruit is absent from view.
Wine judges perform better when they have the full class on the tasting bench at the same time. Only when you can compare, for example, wine 11 with wine 23 and wine 25 can you decide which is really the best, and why. Otherwise you must rely solely on the notes you made at the time. These may not help you calibrate the exact intensity of the aroma or the weight of the tannins.
For exactly the same reason, wine drinkers wishing to make shopping decisions are better off at a wine show where there are several producers offering samples of the same or similar wines. Taste memory becomes less important if you can revisit the wines you liked elsewhere in the room and make a decision based on a comparative appreciation of what’s on offer. It’s one of the reasons I work the room so hard at WineX.
Over the course of the three evenings I discovered, or renewed acquaintance with, a number of standout wines. I’m going to list, probably over a couple of columns, those that were very good — especially if they also represented great value at the price point.
Several are not so readily available — like the Klein Goederust shiraz 2023, polished, succulent, red fruit with a hint of peppery spice, and not overpriced at R285. The Hidden Valley Hidden Gem 2022 (72% cabernet, 28% petit verdot, aged in wood for 18 months, of which 25% was new) delivered lovely intensity. Alongside it was the 2020 Hidden Valley petit verdot, which was splendid, and highlighted the role played by the petit verdot in the 2022 blend.
Viognier has been a tough sell in South Africa — mainly because producers don’t always harvest it at exactly the point of optimum ripeness. Manley’s 2025 caught the peachy fragrance perfectly. At R140/bottle it’s great value.
Equally impressive from a quality and price perspective were several wines from Morgenster. Federica, the daughter of the late founder, Giulio Bertrand, has clearly been running the estate for long enough to impose her vision on the wines, and the results are splendid. I particularly liked the Tosca 2022 (70% Sangiovese), which sells for R200, and the 2020 Lourens River Valley, a merlot-dominated Bordeaux blend that overdelivers at R250.
- Fridjhon was show director at WineX.
This article was first published in Business Day.
