Name of Wine: Old world, name of region, chateau, domaine, winery, village etc plus vineyard on higher quality. Some made up names. New world, all made up name , grape variety or brand.
Producer: The domaine, chateau, winery or just the name and address.
Classification: Strict Appellation of Origin Controle or Protegee (AOP, IGP, Vin hierarchy) for EU; less strict AVA in new world usually just grape and region.
Vintage: Year in which grapes were harvested except multi harvest blends like Champagne where no vintage printed on bottle.
Price: Retail price paid ; Consider how it relates to the quality of the wine? Check with Vivino, or Wine Searcher apps. for comparison.
ABV: Alcohol volume as a % of total 75cl/750ml.
Ranges between 9.5% & 15% on average. Can be guide to style.
Where Bought: Worth noting for value check, quality and repurchase.
Tasted with: Wine is fun ,and better shared, especially to compare notes with other enthusiasts..
Date Tasted: Especially important when tasting back vintage wines.
Appearance
The wine should be clear. If hazy, then probably faulty. Sediment , tartaric crystals are usually NOT a fault.
Is the colour intensity pale, medium or deep. HINT. Look directly down in the glass. If you cannot see where the stem attaches then it’s deep.
Most whites are pale lemon, some lemon, and those with age gold, amber or brown. Most Reds are ruby, although young wines & many new world are purple. All move progressively via garnet, tawny to brown.
The characteristics of the tears or legs are meaningless to quality. Represent viscosity of sugar and /or alcohol levels only.
Nose
80% of what we taste, will come via our nose, so pay particular attention to what aromas and/or bouquets you smell, paying attention to your initial impressions.
If the wine smells off, it is probably faulty and should be discarded. Abort the tasting. If clean, then move on.
How easy is it to capture the aromas? The INTENSITY of the nose runs from hardly discernable or light, to medium, where you have to really concentrate on identifying the characteristics and layers, to pronounced where they are easily detected.
There are basically three levels of aromas and flavours that you will need to identify. PRIMARY fruits like strawberry or blackcurrant ( see full list below). SECONDARY , resulting from post fermentation winemaking processes like malolactic fermentation ( buttery, cheese, cream ), the use of oak barrels (vanilla, toast, cedar, coconut, chocolate, coffee) and yeast (biscuit, bread, brioche) . TERTIARY resulting from the maturing of the wine as it ages in the barrel or bottle. Some wines like Madeira, some sherries and ports are deliberately oxidised and develop wonderful nutty, caramel, marzipan character.
As fruit develops in white wines they become more concentrated and taste of dried apple, marmalade or apricot, even marmalade.
Red fruits similarly develop dried, cooked, black and red fruit characteristics and even fig and prune.
Bottle aging in Whites takes 5 to 10 years and sometimes more. It will yield herbal notes of ginger, nutmeg, even cinnamon. Hay, honey and toast can develop and even petrol notes in Rieslings.
Quality Reds can develop anything from 5 to 50 years and change radically along the way picking up savoury notes, including leather, mushroom, earth, cedar, tobacco, mushroom, forest floor.
Palate
In addition to what you smell, there are elements of taste that are key indicators of style and quality in a wine. The building blocks to the structure of the wine are:
Most wines you taste will be DRY even though this category is referred to as SWEETNESS. The gradations are off dry & medium dry ,before medium sweet, sweet and very sweet.
ACIDITY is that mouthwatering sensation you get when tasting a lemon. Most will be medium that balances with other elements, Low acidity can make the wine flabby and uninteresting while high gives vibrancy.
TANNINS unappetising though it sounds, a cold tea bag is what we’re talking here. Young Chianti has HIGH tannin, Pinot Noir low and most others medium. It is important to describe the type as well. Are they soft, (an indication of ripe fruit) or hard and green ( unripe fruit) or coarse versus fine?
ALCOHOL is that warm or hot sensation when you inhale over the wine in your mouth. Higher the abv, the hotter the air. Directly related to sweetness ( fermentation is the conversion of fruit into alcohol) with low abv wines invariably sweet and high abv bone dry.
BODY is the weight of the wine in your mouth which is the result in large part to the level of alcohol. Think of water as light, cream full, with say milk in between.
FLAVOUR INTENSITY similar to nose and can be light, medium (+) /(-) or pronounced. Note that it is not unusual for palate to be lighter than nose, but rarely the other way around.
FLAVOURS are again the primary, secondary and tertiary described above. After smelling you’ll already have identified them. Now focus only the MAIN INITIAL flavours and confirm what your nose told you (or not). Then move to the MID PALATE for the more complex layers and finally the FINISH.
FINISH is one of the keys to quality. Short, medium or long are dead giveaways. The longer the flavours linger on your palate after swallowing or spitting the better quality the wine. Long would be a minute plus.
It’s also worth recording the texture of the wine. Various grape varieties display steely, oily even creamy characteristics that can help identify them. Even petillance in some still wines.
Grape Varieties
From the evidence so far try and identify the main grape varieties. Professional tasting literally begins by identifying red or white (or pink). Is the red wine light (Pinot Noir, Grenache etc) or full bodied ( Cabernet Sauvignon et al). The white pale ( possibly Riesling) or pale green (most whites) or golden showing signs of age?
Country & Region
As you study the wine regions, you’ll know which grape varieties grow where, so identifying grapes gives a clue as to where it may be from. A general observation is that New World wines tend to be fuller, more pronounced and less dry than similar Old World wines. This is because the fruit is riper from the consistently ideal growing environments of say California, versus the marginal climates of Germany, or highly variable climates of Bordeaux.
Conclusion
This is where you analyse all the evidence so far, and decide what the quality level of the wine is, ranging from acceptable to good to very good to outstanding.
This may seem subjective and it is to some extent, but quality is based on a few key factors. BALANCE, i.e. none of tannin, acidity, alcohol or fruit concentration dominates with each well integrated. How long is the FINISH. Rough guide is 5 or 6 seconds for acceptable, 10 – 15 for good and above for very good or outstanding. COMPLEXITY comes with quality fruit, quality winemaking and maturation and contributes to the wines POTENTIAL for AGING.
IS THE WINE READY FOR DRINKING is a related question. Age worthy wines have high acidity, high tannin and concentrated fruits all of which develop and integrate over time. Great Medoc wines are undrinkable in youth but become great wines after aging. On the other hand, less concentrated, vibrant wines with less structure are probably better young. The majority of wines sold are meant to be drunk within 2 years of bottling. Only truly fine wines age past this timescale.
Description & Rating
Here you can become a wine critic and use your own words to describe the subjective characteristics of the wine. Did you enjoy it , if so, describe what you liked about it and critically would you repurchase or recommend it to friends.
Even give it a rating: 5 stars for outstanding; 4 very good; 3 good ; 2 acceptable and 1 poor.