The more astute among you may have noticed a slight discrepancy between the subtitle of this site and the actual reviews. That’s a lack of one of the senses, namely, hearing. But do not adjust your screen (or your speakers). There is nothing wrong. Unless, of course, you have your password on a stickie note attached to the side. That’s wrong.
Hearing. Yes, it’s one of senses, and you could include it in wine tasting if you wanted. The problem is with method, to make it sounds more sophisticated than it is. Let’s start with a recognition. All of the sensations from wine are going to be affected by the conditions in which you look at, smell, and drink it. The quality of the light (bright daylight, fluorescent, middle of a thunderstorm) will change how the wine looks. But that can be more or less taken into account. Look at wine under as similar conditions as you can. Or look at it under a variety of conditions. In fact, I’ve been in a couple of tasting rooms that provide individual stations, with specific backlighting to ensure consistency.
Similarly, taste and smell, as we’ve already established can be affected by the physical body, illness and other such issues, including what you’ve eaten earlier. They also depend on factors such as the temperature of the wine. But again, these can largely be worked around. Wine can be tasted and smelled at different temperatures (or let come to a standard temperature). If you know you are going to taste wine analytically, you should know to avoid toothpaste, perfumes, smoking, and a number of other things in the hours before you taste. In other words, you can minimise, if never eliminate, a lot of the variance.
With sound, I’ve just not come across a way to do so. And the only research I’ve seen reported on sound and wine quality was on the size of bubbles in sparkling wine and that took specialised equipment to measure. (It’s an interesting read, and it is here.) Even that admits the extra problems of trying to measure sound: how is the wine poured from the bottle? Does it come out in a nice smooth stream, or is it turbulent? I’m pretty sure sound will also depends on the size of the bottle and the opening. The speed of the pour. What about the shape of the glass and the material it is made out of? (That one is relatively easy – just use the same sort of glass.) Are you using something to help stop the drips, which give a different flow?
Anyway, all of this argues against inclusion of sound on a regular basis in my tastings. However, I’ll admit that in writing this post, I’ve become intrigued to see what happens when I start listening to the wine. So I may (or may well not) include sound in a few reviews. I don’t think I’ll go to the lengths the official Champagne website in describing the sounds of Champagne being poured into a glass:
There is a discreet popping noise as the bottle is opened, then a crackling, fizzing sound as the wine is poured and the effervescence whooshes into the glass – a sound like the stirring of leaves in the breeze or the rustling of silk, taffeta, lace …
The bubbles burst, hiss, chatter, babble, whisper then fade …
https://www.champagne.fr/en/tasting-and-appreciation/champagne-tasting-experience/language-of-the-senses
Even here, I can’t resist pointing out that they are talking about the sounds that are a result of the bubbles (and the contents of the bottle being under pressue), not the pouring of a still wine. So, I remain unconvinced, but in spirit of wine as if all the senses matter, I’ll willing to give it a go.