We’re Learning Wine at the Speed of Light

I had a bit of a moment the other day.

I’ve now finished Thirsty by the fabulous Tom Gilbey four times. Not skimmed it, properly read it, gone back to it, picked bits up I missed the first time. Alongside that I’ve spent hours watching Konstantin Baum on YouTube, really trying to understand not just what he tastes, but how he thinks.

And then it hit me.

There is still an endless amount of knowledge sat there waiting. Instantly available. On demand.

That just didn’t exist not that long ago.

It got me thinking are we actually able to learn wine faster than ever before?

The Old Way vs The New Way

If you go back a couple of decades, learning wine looked very different.

You had books. Maybe one or two key voices you followed. If you were lucky, a mentor in a restaurant or a wine shop. Most of what you learned came from being in the room, being told, and slowly building experience over time.

It was linear. It was slower. And in a lot of ways, it was controlled.

Now it’s completely different.

You can hear from a Master of Wine in the morning, a producer in the afternoon, and a sommelier breaking down blind tasting in the evening. You can watch how people taste, how they describe, how they reason. You’re not just getting answers, you’re getting access to thought processes.

For someone like me, who definitely leans more visual than anything else, that’s massive. Reading tasting notes is one thing, but seeing someone explain why a wine behaves the way it does, that’s where it starts to stick.

The Trap! More Content Doesn’t Mean Better Learning

But there is a flip side to all of this.

Just because there’s more content, doesn’t mean you’re learning better.

At the minute I’ve taken a lot from Tom Gilbey, Konstantin Baum, Oz Clarke and Olly Smith all brilliant voices with different ways of speaking . But that’s still only a few perspectives.

Then you start looking at critics like Jancis Robinson, Robert Parker and James Suckling and you realise a lot of their work sits behind paywalls.

Which makes you question it.

Are you paying for deeper understanding or just more opinions?

Because at the end of the day, a tasting note is still a conclusion. It tells you what someone thought. It doesn’t always tell you how they got there.

And I think that’s the difference.

What Actually Accelerates Learning

The more I get into this, the more I realise it’s not about how many wines you try or how many videos you watch.

It’s about how you think about them.

I’m starting to notice that I learn far more when I compare wines rather than just drink them. When I try and work out why one feels tighter, fresher, more structured than another. When I think about climate, grape, winemaking, rather than just flavour.

It’s slower in the moment, but it compounds much quicker.

Instead of just remembering that a wine tasted of blackcurrant or vanilla, you start to understand why it did. And once that clicks, it carries over to the next bottle, and the next.

That’s where things start to speed up

Where I’m Going Next

Right now, I feel like I’m at a bit of a turning point.

I’ve got a solid base, but I don’t want to just keep consuming the same voices and thinking I’m progressing. I want to bring in more perspectives, challenge what I think I know, and start building my own way of understanding wine.

WSET Level 3 is definitely on my mind, not just for the qualification, but for the structure it brings. Alongside that, I want to keep exploring different creators, different regions, and most importantly, keep tasting with a bit more intent.

Because that’s what this is really about.

Not just drinking wine, but actually learning it.

And in a world where knowledge is moving as fast as it is now, it feels like there’s a real opportunity to accelerate that journey… if you approach it the right way.