Tasting Notes of Yore

by whitney on February 14, 2011

I have lots of notebooks. All shapes and sizes. There’s also loose scraps of paper, scribbles on pamphlets, brochures from wineries I’ve visited on trips, etc. I get to taste a lot of wine and I try most of the time to take notes on those wines. I’ve talked before about how I feel about tasting notes. I don’t use them often on the blog, but I certainly use them ALL the time when I’m tasting; for my own reference and to be able to remember the wine months later when I need to describe it to a customer or compare previous vintages. I thought you might be curious about these notes and what I actually write down.

Every person has their own lingo and shorthand when note taking. I don’t always use the same formula (acidity, alcohol percentage, body, finish, aromas) every time but there are some words/descriptors that get used more than others. For example, in no particular order: scrubby, zippy, clean, round, bright, fat, chewy, fruit, silk, lean, balance, vanilla, linear, tropical, savory, bitter, oak, hot, black pepper, saline.

I tend to use “scrubbiness” often to describe a wine’s tannic structure and finish. So, I’ll see in my notes “velvet scrub” or “cotton mouth scrub” or some variation for my brain to remember the exact feeling. I also always try to jot down the texture or “mouth feel” in terms of weight and density. I find that along with the finish and the acidity level are the most important to know when being able to describe it to a customer who is debating whether or not to purchase and take it home. And let’s get real, there are also times when I just write “delicious” “great” “yum”  or “bad” “ugh” “no way” and that just about sums it up.

In the history of my note taking, one tasting trumps all others for the sheer volume of wine notes it produced- the Barbera Meeting. We were tasting up to 70 wines in a day. And that was just in the morning. I kept my notes pretty succinct as to motor through but here are some highlights- the good: “makes me wanna eat” and “happy” and then the bad: “old person”, “smells like dole pineapple juice”, “smells like dough”, “cedar alcohol”, “old lady breath”, “canned green beans”, “sweet perm”, “tolerable”, “meh”.

They certainly aren’t the most fun to taste, but the bad wine notes are always the most entertaining.

{ 1 comment }

my little apartment February 14, 2011 at 9:50 am

this makes me miss your blind tastings! I remember noting bad things like “cat pee” and “garbage-y” and good things like “hot asphalt after it rains”, “that ‘green’ flavor in jalepenos”, and “kinda tastes like pot smells”, amongst other things.

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