Licking Palette?

One reason I love wine bloggers is because they encourage a transparency not necessarily ubiquitous in more traditional media. I try, with my limited exposure, knowledge, and complete lack of pride, to be real and honest in all of my actions here on The Vino File. So I need to quickly confess that it has been correctly brought to my attention that I have been tasting wine for the last year and a half with a wooden board used for mixing paint.

I have written the word 'palette' on these pages probably hundreds of times, and I have been incorrect. The correct spelling for the portion of your mouth with which it was originally believed that you taste, and by extension the flavors and mouthfeel of wine and beer is palate.

This little dollop of ignorance was acknowledged to me by a senior editor of a rather prominent wine magazine, for which I am grateful. At first I considered blaming all of you who never pointed it out to me. I guess the shame might have begun to overwhelm me. Then I realized that the buck stops here. I learn something everyday and today it was the fact that ignorance passes right through spell checker. I can make one promise, it will be correct going forward. Incidentally there is also a pallet, which is the wooden structure under the cases of wine used for a forklift to move them around. And while I vote that we make all three spellings universally applicable to all three concepts, I imagine I am in the minority.

There you have it, your transparent wine blogger confession of the day.