Ever feel so tired you can hardly drink, or think? As a former runner, and I don’t mean the marathon, half marathon or triathlon kind. I’m just the average runner on the trails, I love the rush of feeling tired and spent after a great run. As a mom, I can totally relate to early mornings, school drop offs, working all day, afternoon carpool, dinner prep, baths, homework and all other mom activities. All this before feeling so exhausted and tired I can hardly even make it to bed. But this type of tired isn’t so easy to define or explain, it’s a whole new category of tired – palate fatigue!
What the heck do I mean by palate fatigue? And how on earth does this relate to wine? Let me paint a scene for you. In my Survival Skills of a Wine Nerd post, I shared a few tips and tricks for surviving wine tastings – especially the kind with more than 10-20 wines being poured. Much of what I cover focuses on not getting totally sloshed while trying as many wines as possible. But even following each tip to the minutia detail cannot ensure palate fatigue won’t creep it’s way into your experience.
Is it me or am i just to tired to taste anymore?
With no real technical definition I’d be able to share, I’m going to lean on personal experience instead. We attended a recent fund raising event preceded by a VIP wine and spirits tasting. I was able to once again use my savvy wine tasting tips to try quite a few wines and even spirits. For the good part of an hour and a half, I work my way around the vendors taking little sips of this and swishes of that. I even walk around with a plastic cup to use for dumping (candidly I was alone in this approach!).
Once the dinner chimes played, we move on to the food part of the event with local restaurants competing for the top prize – best dish. I will not deny this came with more wine – in the bottle on the table form thanks to my darling table hostess! Not to let the celebratory spirit end, we all decide to hit a Ft. Worth legendary restaurant / bar for a nightcap – of course mine again was wine. By this point all of my tasting tricks have long been usurped by your standard wine consumption. My bad!
Let’s get to the real reason I am tired
I know, I know, I’m way off track as usual, but now comes the part where I actually share my palate fatigue definition by experience! In any group of somms or service professionals, there’s always one who tosses out a challenge. This one is a blind tasting – of a dark, inky, big nosed red. Yep, the glass was shoved my way for my intelligence and experienced guess. Red, yes. Big and powerful, yes. Tannic, yes. Fruit forward, somewhat. Able to pull out all of my wine knowledge and tasting experience to decipher what the wine was telling me? No way on earth! I have a major case of palate fatigue! I could barely break down what I was tasting as my tastebuds and olfactory senses have long gone night night and left me hopelessly without the context needed.
So my friends, even people like me who nerd out over blind tastings and spend more time dissecting fruits and aromas than drinking a glass all too often can fall victim to palate fatigue. It’s real and when it happens, my suggestion is to call it a night, brush your teeth and try again another day! Thankfully, palate fatigue is temporary and with a little restraint and recuperation, your tongue and nose will be back in prime form in no time!
Cheers!🍷
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