Philosophy and Wine: Tastes and tasting

Philosophers who reject this conclusion argue that taste properties, such as a wine’s length or balance, are objective features of a wine and that under the right conditions, and with the right experience and training as tasters, they are revealed to us in experience. Tasting a wine involves the taster’s subjectivity but verdicts based on those subjective experiences are not mere matters of opinion: so not subjective in that sense. Certain experiences will be more accurate than others, some people will be better tasters then others, and judgements of a wine can be right or wrong. On this objectivist view, tastes are in the wine, not in us, and by improving the skills of tasting we can come to know them more accurately (see Smith 2007).