Tastes change with time

It’s also important to bear in mind that our perception of wine itself – how it ‘tastes’ – changes with experience. As you drink wine thoughtfully, you’ll begin to ‘get’ it better. It will say more to you. And your taste preferences will also likely shift. This is worth bearing in mind if you are planning to build up a cellar of bottles: I know chums who have bought enthusiastically the sorts of wines they liked when they were first developing into geeks, only for their preferences to change, leaving them with a cellar of wines in a style they no longer cared for.

Wine is best shared, but as you learn more and become more confident of your own tastes, you’ll begin to be able to appreciate a great bottle even when you drink it on your own. I remember when I first started tasting wine thoughtfully. I needed the second opinions of others to help me decide whether the wine I was drinking was particularly good or not. I guess that’s why critics who operate in absolutes—giving wine scores, for example—are so popular. They reassure people that the expensive bottle of wine that they are drinking really is incredibly good.