How to Train Your Wine Brain

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So you want to get better at tasting wine, but you’re not sure where to start. Maybe you’ve taken a class or two. Maybe you haven’t. Maybe you’re just a wine-curious human who wants to understand what the hell “crushed white lilies” are supposed to smell like. Good news: You don’t need a degree in wine to build a great palate—you just need to slow down and start paying attention.

In the latest episode of After Wine School, Keith Wallace and Alana Zerbe—founders of the Wine School of Philadelphia and co-conspirators in wine education—sit down to tackle the big question: How do you actually get better at tasting wine? With humor, warmth, and the occasional detour into dog armpits, they lay out a practical path to sensory enlightenment.

First Lesson: Smell Everything

Step one? Go sniff stuff. No, seriously. Walk into your local grocery store or, better yet, an Asian market, and smell everything you can get your nose on. Herbs, fruit, cheese, spices—just take a moment and really focus. What does rosemary smell like compared to thyme? How does a peach smell when it’s underripe versus when it’s about to turn?

This is what Keith calls sensory mindfulness. “Just slow down,” he says. “Take the anxiety out of shopping and turn it into a sensory experience.” The goal isn’t to memorize smells but to notice them—to start building those neural pathways that let you say, “Oh, this Chardonnay smells like underripe pineapple and white pepper,” instead of just, “It smells like wine.”

Second Lesson: Cook More

Cooking, even badly, is one of the fastest ways to become a better taster. As you prep and cook, smell each ingredient. Garlic raw versus garlic sautéed. Cinnamon before and after it hits the pan. Vanilla from the bottle compared to the scent wafting off a freshly baked pie.

As Keith puts it, “You can describe almost anything in wine with just a few ideas from cooking.” You don’t need to be a chef. A grilled cheese sandwich cooked in butter—ideally with paprika, if you’re feeling Alana-level fancy—is a sensory goldmine.

And don’t shy away from the ugly stuff. Alana makes a point of sniffing fruit on the edge of rotting just to practice teasing apart the layers of sweet and sour, fresh and funky. “Catalog the smells you don’t like, too,” she says. “That’s how you get used to earthy wines, and why some people find them challenging—they’re just not used to discomfort.”

Third Lesson: Don’t Fake It

One thing the podcast hammers home: authenticity matters. Don’t pretend you know what crushed white lilies smell like if you’ve never crushed a white lily. Don’t parrot terms you heard in a tasting room unless they actually mean something to you. “It sets you back,” Alana warns. “You stop growing because you’re speaking with someone else’s voice.”

Keith has heard it all—students calling every wine “Asian five spice” without being able to name a single spice in the mix. “If you really want to sound like you’re full of shit, just start repeating tasting notes you don’t understand,” he says.

Fourth Lesson: Go Deep, Not Wide

Here’s a trick that changed Keith’s life: pick a single grape variety and chase it around the world. He started with Cabernet Franc, tasting examples from France, South Africa, Pennsylvania, and beyond. The goal wasn’t to find the “best” one—it was to understand the grape’s core identity and how place changes the expression. “That’s actually where the idea for the Core Sommelier Program came from,” Keith says.

One student even spent a full year drinking nothing but Riesling. He documented how his preferences, vocabulary, and perceptions evolved over time. White wines, Alana adds, are great for this sort of palate boot camp. “They’re your best friends for learning. The nuance is more exposed.”

Fifth Lesson: Let It Be Fun

There’s no finish line in wine. “You’ll never smell everything,” Alana says. “There’s no destination.” And that’s the beauty of it. Your palate will change. Your favorite wines will change. Your ability to describe what you’re tasting will grow. You’re not racing anyone. Just enjoy the process.

Smell your dog’s Dorito-scented paws. Bake an apple pie. Roast garlic. Eat blueberries at every stage of ripeness. Let your weird sensory memories be part of your learning process. And when you’re ready to dive deeper, sure—take a wine class. Join a tasting group. Or just keep listening to the podcast.

Because wine isn’t just about what’s in the glass. It’s about how we live, how we notice, and how we grow.

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Bonus Tip from Keith:
“If you want to get better at tasting wine, you don’t have to look outward—just go narrow. Pick one thing. One grape, one region, one producer. Get obsessed.”

Bonus Tip from Alana:
“Perfume counts. Home scents count. Get your nose into everything. The more you indulge your sense of smell, the better taster you’ll become.”

Check out the full episode of After Wine School wherever you get your artisanally grown audio (yes, that’s a thing). And if you enjoy what we do, please rate and review. Just don’t parrot our tasting notes. That would be cringe.