palate. Like all guilds, they seem to have disappeared during the French Revolution. At the beginning of the 19th century, industrialization took hold of wine production, and local wines lost their importance. This was just before the phylloxera crisis, which brought viticulture to an abrupt halt. After the renaissance of the vineyards, wine tasting once


again became a savoir-faire exercise, but based on a different method; the 1960s saw the advent of analytical or sensory tasting. It was reinforced by several factors, including the launch of the famous INAO glass. This was the brainchild of Jules Chauvet, a scientist and wine merchant in the Beaujolais region. With the geometry of the glass, Chauvet sought to optimize the olfactory perception of aromas. In the intervening years, gourmets and their know-how have been almost forgotten—but not quite. A few writings and associations of enthusiasts kept the method alive and would later enable its renaissance, following an exchange between Burgundy vigneron Henri Jayer and researcher Jacky Rigaux. Jayer advised Rigaux to reread Histoire et Statistique de la Vigne et des Grands Vins de la Côte-d’Or, published by Professor Jules Lavalle in 1855. In it, a short paragraph was devoted to gourmets. Jayer and Rigaux began to practice the technique, initially to promote local wines. Then, a decade or so later, Rigaux conceptualized the gourmet process and renamed it “geosensory tasting,” with the aim of teaching it to others. It took him several more years to set up the necessary training courses.


Schooling the geosensory way In the telling of his various encounters, Rigaux invokes some of the great names in the world of wine, including Aubert de Villaine, Georges Truc, and Jean-Michel Deiss. “The aromas described by the amateur taster speak much more about his or her character than the wine he or she is describing,” says Deiss, a fabled Alsace winemaker. “Nature has provided us with all the touch sensors in the mouth, and a very solid, universal, highly effective vocabulary. Can there be any misunderstanding about the meaning of the words we use in geosensory tasting, such as hot or cold, thick or thin, rough or smooth? No, never.” In 2013, Deiss founded the Université des Grands Vins, which


provides training in fine wine through the practice of geosensorial tasting. Five years later, he introduced the method to the faculty of Geography and Planning at the University of Strasbourg. Author Audrey Delbarre is one of the lecturers there: “Geosensory tasting is complementary to other forms,” she says. “Reordering our senses by focusing on the mouth helps us avoid being fooled by our brain, which tends to anticipate sensations and thus influence our emotions.” At the same time, Franck Thomas, recognized as Europe’s Best Sommelier in 2000, is launching his training center, where he promotes three types of tasting: analytical, intuitive, and geosensory. In 2019, he joined the Revue du Vin de France Academy, which has ten training centers in France and, since 2023, a branch in Switzerland through Pur Jus Education, founded by Alexandre Centeleghe. A former collaborator of James Suckling, Centeleghe now devotes his time to teaching, both at the École Hôtelière de Lausanne and with his own business. “I’ve known about geosensory tasting for more than ten years,” he says, “but I’ve been really interested in it for the past three or four. Until now, I had a very classical approach, but I wanted to feel more at one with the wine. Pragmatically, for me, geosensory tasting makes sense as part of a whole.” Lilla Fülöp, corporate head sommelier at Grand


Metropolitan Hotels in Zurich and an accredited Wine & Spirit Education Trust educator, feels the same way. She prefers local wines and always looks for the imprint of terroir in her glass, but she favors analytical tasting. “I adhere to structured methods, which involve visual analysis, detecting aromas through olfaction, and tasting the wine to fully understand its structure. Recognition of the components influenced by terroir comes toward the end of my process.” Could geosensory tasting be a tool for food and wine


pairing? Fülöp says, “Even if the method is fascinating for those who really want to understand wine, I find it too complex in a typical restaurant setting. I prefer to conduct detailed tastings of terroir wines, where food may or may not complement the experience.” So, who is geosensorial tasting for? “To borrow a fashionable term,” says Centeleghe, “terroirists should go all out! I hope to see more of us doing it, so that we can create a community and experience it together.” 


THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 87 | 2025 | 97


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