This is particularly true when we are trying to distinguish between many wines that have similarities. A commonly used phrase among enthusiasts and professionals alike is, “My palate is tired.” In fact, our noses and taste buds don’t tire our brains do. If you are tasting a lot of wines, the sheer act of tasting can be tiring between the sensory overload of (hopefully) delightful flavors compounded by the alcohol. Remembering wines is more than a memory game. That is why taking memorable wine tasting notes is helpful and even important. However, the vast majority of wines fall somewhere in between. Naturally, the best and worst wines almost always stick out. While the memory of tasting a few wines may well stick around for several days or even a few weeks, when you taste many wines in a relatively short period of time (or many wines frequently, like wine pros), they can be hard to accurately remember down to the last detail. Sometimes they’re about an important difference you have tasted or been told about between wines grapes, vintages, winemaking techniques or vineyard sources. Tasting notes on wine aren’t just about aromas, tannins and so on. However, there are wine tasting basics and wine note taking steps that can maximize your potential for remembering – even vividly – a wine you tasted, even if you come back to your notes months or years on.
(I like to use “DNPIM”, “Do Not Put In Mouth”, for the last one.)įor your wine scribbles, sketches or whatever they look like, you don’t have to taste like a wine pro or write a complex tasting note. They help us remember which wines we loved, which we thought were drinkable and which we never want to taste again. There are plenty of reasons to write wine tasting notes.
Finally, it’s not just why and what you note, it is how and where you note it. Whatever is most relevant, most distinguishing to you is what is most important. Unless you are taking a wine exam, nothing specific is required. Tasting notes for wine need to satisfy the end user. It is about noting something meaningful beyond today and tomorrow. Yet the exercise of writing notes, including memorable wine tasting notes, is more than putting pen to paper or thumbs to screens.
He says, “If you don’t write your ideas down, they could leave your head before you even leave the room.” Richard Branson of the Virgin empire is famous for his fondness for taking notes.