Notes from the Briny Cellar: Tasting Caviar Like Fine Wine

Caviar through the lens of a wine connoisseur

Caviar is not just a salty flex!

ALEXA FLEWELLING, Owner of Hamptons Palm Beach Fine Wine & Spirits, Digs Deep

For years, I thought caviar was a prop—an edible exclamation point reserved for events, formal dinners, and definitely for photographs. It never occurred to me as something I’d want to eat alone at home.

That changed the afternoon Altima Caviar came to my shop. No vodka. No blinis. We sat at a table with mother-of-pearl spoons and tasted directly from the backs of our hands.

The format felt immediately familiar, like tasting wine. With our attention fixed on taste alone, the caviars unfolded in layers. One was creamy, another nutty, another sharp with a saline finish that stayed longer than expected.

As the tasting went on, my wine brain took over, translating what I was experiencing into familiar reference points. On my palate, the Beluga hybrid felt plush, rich and creamy in the way a texture-driven white Burgundy can be. The Siberian sturgeon carried more savory weight, nutty and structured, bringing to mind the mineral depth I associate with Chablis. Amber Osetra, by contrast, felt lighter and more lifted, precise and energetic, closer to the brightness of a focused Sancerre.

Once you’ve tasted caviar this way—without garnish, without performance—it’s hard to go back. Like wine, it doesn’t ask to impress you. It asks you to listen. And when you do, caviar stops being something you order for the table and becomes something you reach for when you’re alone.

What Sommeliers Know and Caviar Teaches Quickly

In the wine world, tasting without food isn’t a deprivation — it’s a calibration. It allows the taster to isolate variables: fat, acidity, salinity, texture, and finish. When caviar is tasted unadorned, the same principles apply.

Each variety behaves differently on the palate:

• Beluga Hybrid tends toward richness and breadth, coating the mouth with a creamy, almost silken texture.
• Siberian Sturgeon presents more structure and umami, with nutty depth and a savory backbone.
• Amber Osetra is often more lifted and precise, with brightness and a clean, saline snap that dissipates quickly.

These distinctions become especially clear when caviar is approached not as garnish, but as the central subject; tasted slowly, allowed to warm slightly, and observed for how long its impression lingers.

When caviar is tasted like fine wine, something shifts. It moves from spectacle to substance, from table centerpiece to personal ritual. There’s no need for ceremony beyond attention, no requirement for occasion beyond curiosity.

Like wine, caviar reveals itself fully only when you slow down and taste it for what it really is.

Stop by Hamptons Palm Beach to get your own taste of Altima with in house expertise and guidance from owner, Alexa Flewelling.