For about ten years, I have been regularly organising wine tastings. For the past six years, these have almost exclusively featured Champagne from the Champagne Characters programme, which means I know these wines very well.
Among the guests, there is always a good mix of wine experts, enthusiasts, and complete beginners.
On the one hand, it is noticeable that the atmosphere spontaneously created within a group influences the way wine tastes (people are cheerful, relaxed, stressed, or irritated).
Of course, the wine itself also presents slightly differently each time – depending on bottling, aging, disgorgement date, and so on.
However, in some tastings there are significant characteristics that are perceived by the entire group (beginners and professionals alike) and that strongly influence the experience:
For example, on certain days acidity or oak influence can come across as unpleasantly strong. Unfortunately, this once happened during a tasting on the theme of oak-aged Champagne. Many fans of this style were present, and yet that evening the wines were not well received – not even by those who usually buy them regularly.
There is also the wine app “When Wine Tastes Best”, based on the biodynamic calendar, which claims to predict whether it is a root day or leaf day (rather unfavourable), or a flower or fruit day (more favourable). HERE is a good explanation of it.
The tasting mentioned above likely even took place on a root day. I occasionally check this app, but I do not base my tastings on it – otherwise I would hardly be able to organise any, as the “non-ideal” days are in the majority.
When the app was new, I checked it more often. But quite frequently it simply did not match reality: sometimes everyone enjoyed the wines even though the day was supposedly unfavourable, and sometimes the opposite. Either the app is not accurately programmed, the calculations are outdated, or there is simply no real correlation. Or the effects vary and are influenced by other factors (such as mood, context, etc.).
Another memorable tasting was one I call “Fettes Brot” (“Rich Bread”) – featuring only opulent, long-aged Champagne with higher dosage. On that day, everything tasted surprisingly “light” and everyone was disappointed. I experienced it the same way and felt slightly helpless, because I knew the wines differently – but could not change anything (“Sorry, imagine it usually tastes different…”).
On another evening, I thought I was doing the guests a favour by serving these richer styles at the end. On that day, however, they came across as extremely heavy, and almost everyone said: “This is far too powerful.”
This contrast between light and opulent is not taken into account in the app at all.
Then there are days when the fruit expression is particularly vivid – those are the tastings after which I tend to sell the most bottles. Once, the effect was so intense that everyone felt almost intoxicated by the sensory experience. That tasting was repeated on the following two days with the same wines (I always run my larger tastings three times in a row). The experience was usually different each time, including the preferred wines.
These extreme cases are rare; most tastings are what I would call “normal”, with different preferences among guests and consistent patterns that align with what I have observed elsewhere. Fortunately – otherwise making recommendations would be impossible.
What has recently started to concern me is the following:
With the new spacing arrangements, I notice that Champagne tastes different in the vaulted cellar compared to the living room upstairs (currently, tastings are split into two groups). The influence of environment is well known – but not usually to this extent.
During the very hot days in recent weeks, I also had the impression that guests’ sense of taste was almost “all over the place”. Several guests described a stainless-steel-aged Chardonnay with zero dosage as “sweet and overly rich”, while an oak-aged Pinot was perceived as “very light”. Overall, sensory perception during extreme heat seemed more unstable or negative.
In summer, I also receive significantly more requests for particularly light Champagne, and one client even found everything aged longer than two years with dosage to be “too characterful”. The issue of opulence was clearly very present here.
This may be connected to physical condition. In a wine forum, someone writes: “…there may be a link between physiological parameters (blood glucose, sympathetic nervous system activity, hydration levels, etc.) and/or current psychological state.”
Rene Gabriel also describes a similar phenomenon of weather-dependent tasting in his blog:
“It was at Christian Moueix in Pomerol. When asked about the rather dominant tannins in the barrel samples, he said the same wines had been much more open yesterday. Today there is a low-pressure system, which compresses the tannins and makes them appear harsher.”
I would like to understand this better, because my goal is to continue giving highly accurate wine recommendations.
But as this text already shows, it is not only personal experience and expectations that matter, but also climate, environment, glassware, atmosphere, and psychological state.
Once again, Rene Gabriel:
“For me, pleasure is the most intense form of physical perception… We unfortunately live in a world of expectation inflation.”
Another author from the wine forum adds: The human sense of smell and taste is not a precise measuring instrument, but a system designed to optimise food intake. Perception therefore depends on current bodily needs – hunger, activity level, physical state. Perhaps the key to optimal wine enjoyment is learning to listen more closely to one’s body.
One final thought – and perhaps the most important:
Wine remains one of the most fascinating subjects precisely because it cannot be fully objectified. And because the moments when everything aligns perfectly are often unforgettable. This does not require a 300-euro wine – but rather the right combination of many factors.
For me personally, what matters most is drinking Champagne with people I feel comfortable with. This discussion will certainly continue.
Wishing you many joyful Champagne moments,
Nicola Neumann
