So you are in the most magical bar in all the land. This bar has all the beer, wine, spirits and mixers your heart could desire. You also have one free drink token. What do you get?

Most people realize that I am asking them what their favorite alcoholic beverage is. Only once someone gave me a true answer. He said their oldest scotch! The reason I ask is that the question tells me what flavors you like in your alcohol. When people come in and they say they like a good scotch or whiskey; I go and pull out the El Anejo. I tell them not to think of this as a wine or as a scotch, but to use both thinking caps when they try the wine. 99% of the time the client loves this wine because it shares a little bit of the peat flavors and the smokiness. Yet it still has some dry fruitiness from a wine. When people tell me they like beer, I ask them which beer they have in mind. People who love sour beers love wines like the Peterson Barbera, where there is a lot of fruit and acid, but no sweetness in the wine. Stout lovers like the big bold and slightly earthy wines. People who love Bud and Coors and Natural Ice…. I refer them to questions one and two.

Out of all three questions this is the hardest one for me to explain. I have had a lot of experience tasting different types of alcohol and tasting many different flavors; but a lot of how I find the best wine is just making little connections. I watch your face, listen to what you say to the rest of the group, see how much is left in your glass, what you are nibbling on when you are drinking the wine, and how people are looking at other people tasting. The most important thing is to be able to make that mental connection between flavors and what your own palette remembers about them. I have the opportunity to test out my theories on many people every day. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don’t. But the most important thing when it comes to tasting wines is to open up your mind to whatever memories their taste and smell bring to you and be able to connect them to other memories.