The Appreciation of the After-Taste

Went for wine tasting last week and the session has given me a new insight of appreciating wine (unlike the way I will usually drink wine- which is just to get drunk!)

Here are the fundamental steps to appreciating wine

Look
- Swirl the wine and allow it to blend, look at the color of the wine

Smell
- Allow the wine to cover the interior of the wine glass, put your nose in and smell the aroma of the wine

Taste
- Take a mouthful of wine that is enough to cover your tongue, letting the tongue enjoyed all the taste given by the wine (be it sour, sweet, bitter etc)

After taste
- Swallow the wine, and enjoy the aroma that lingers in the mouth. Good wine lingers longer and gives a pleasant after-taste

Butter
- Have a piece of butter, this is to dull the senses of the tongue as the oil covers the tongue

Second tasting
- Take another sip of wine, now the wine will not be as strong but the taste is more comfortable and pleasnt

Alternative method
- Taught an alternative method to enjoy the wine, by putting the wine in the mouth, swallowing some and leaving a little left in the mouth. Start sucking in air to mix with the wine and retrieving the aroma of the wine down your lungs (might cause choking if not experience)

After learning all these steps, wine doesn’t taste the same any more from that moment as the enjoyment from the entirety of the wine gives a new paradigm to wine appreciation. And through the learning of wine appreciation, I felt that wine appreciation bears similar characteristics of appreciating love.

Look
The initial assessment of a person you like is through the looks. Does the person look pleasant to you? Is she someone that captivates you? Through the looks, an initial assessment of the person is made

Smell
Let’s not be perverted in thought about this, smell doesn’t mean that you practically smell the person and see if you like her smell. To me smell is the feeling the person give to you. Something that is intangible that attracts you, the poise of the person, her character, her charisma etc etc

Taste
Tasting is the stage where you are together with the person and you start to taste the passion of love and the happiness of being together. An initial assessment of how the love is, an experience that might be filled with sweet gratifications, sour taste of jealousy or perhaps plain bitterness as you simply don’t like being with the person

After- taste
This can be represented by the situation when you think of someone when she is not with you, the after taste of love that you enjoy. The feeling of love to the fullest as you indulge in the longing for someone.

Butter
Events that soften the passion, eg like being together for long or some quarrels along the way

Second tasting
Through the events, the passion of love dulls but the taste of love grows smoother and more comfortable as the 2 person start understanding each other and learn to accept each others flaws and values.

Alternative method
That is the stage where a couple tried hard to make the relationship work and to use new ways of loving each other when things get dull. It is a stage of refreshing the love so that new passion ensues and the love becomes stronger and more enjoyable.

Similarly, as I have always drawn the similarity between business and love, the concept can be applied in business as you treat your business as your second wife =). The whole experience gives me a new understanding to the value of the after-taste. How something or someone’s value is actually enhanced and appreciated when they are not around. It is a feeling that is mixed with multiple latitudes of emotions that enhance the feeling of longing. The after- taste is the feeling of love is at its strongest and usually the reason why everyone enjoy being in love.

The butter of love is also crucial as it dulls the passion and let a couple understand what the core of each other is after taking away the fiery passion. It brings out what both of them are and allows the partner to see if after seeing the flaws of each other, are they willing to go forward to try the second, third and many spectrum of events and taste of love.

A love cannot sustain based on mundane and effortless maintenance. It has to be given due diligence to refresh and revive the passion every now and then. So in short, it is about enjoying the entirety of the sweetness, bear with the dullness and making an effort to revive the taste through refreshing methods.

However, this does not mean that the first 2 steps of looking and smelling are not important. They are crucial as they are like a door that you have to cross before you can experience and appreciate the full spectrum of the room of feelings inside.

Wine use to be just a tool to get myself drunk and look “high class” when drinking it, as I don’t have a philosophy to appreciate it. And like love, for people who just wish to be in love without realizing what is the philosophy behind it, is just like a person who doesn’t know how to enjoy wine, they are just doing it for the sake of doing it without much appreciation of the deeper value. Appreciating something, be it wine or love comes with an understanding of the philosophy that sustain it. Having a philosophy to appreciate it so that one can enjoy its sweetness and bitterness. And finally loving it with every moment that passed as the philosophy of appreciating it becomes stronger

Appreciation comes with a philosophy, not just blind tasting

~ James Tan ~