Ep 231: How to Improve Wine Notes with Ian Renwick

May 13, 2018

Wine notes run the gamut -- from detailed and esoteric (meat blood? Madagascar vanilla?) to cute-sy and dumb (like sunshine and deliciousness!). But are they useful to us as wine drinkers? What's the goal of a note? What SHOULD it say for it to be meaningful?

Ian and I discuss the state of notes and what we think could make them better. You'll let us know if we're on to something...

Here's an outline of what we discuss:

1. The purpose of a tasting note

 

2. Communication in wine and whether it's ok to have a lexicon (we debate -- I'm pro, he's con)

 

3. How wine pros are told to communicate and how that muddles things. We touch on our "outsider" perceptions of certifications (since we both came from other industries). Here are links to the grids we reference:

• Court of Master Sommeliers

 

• WSET

4. How critics communicate and how THAT muddles things

 

5. How marketers communicate and how THAT muddles things

 

6. And finally, getting to a better note -- what is normal and helpful? How do we all communicate better about taste sensation/aroma?

 

Here are some other articles on notes that we considered before we recorded:

 

From Decanter: 

 

Jane Anson's article that spurred the discussion 

 

Other Decanter articles:

"How to read wine tasting notes"

 

"How to write wine tasting notes"

 

From Wine Anorak

 "Words for wine: making tasting notes more useful" 

 

From National Public Radio: 
Oaky, With Notes Of BS: Why Wine Tasting Struggles To Get It On The Nose

 

 

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