Pros and Cons: Tasting Note Versus Story Telling
Posted by Cathy Huyghe on Tue, Mar 22, 2011 @ 12:29 PM
I understand wine best when it’s in a context. That is, when I know the producer or the story of the wine, or when I’m with a group of friends and we’re drinking it during a meal. No wine is an island, so to speak.
So when I was asked to write tasting notes for a series of wines, I was intrigued by the challenge. I’d be expected to write a formal note – commenting on the wine’s appearance, nose, palate, conclusion – which I’m fully prepared to do.
(Thank you, WSET and Boston University.)
Yet when I write about wine, it is much more often in context than as a note. You could see it as the difference between prose and phrases.
It definitely requires a shifting of gears. I set some ground rules:
- I didn’t read anyone else’s notes on the wines before I tried them, not even the winemaker’s.
- I took lots of time with each wine. That is, I certainly noted initial impressions but I also “hung around” the wines and came back to them, one after another, to see what else they had to say.
- I did know what the wines were before I tried them, that is, I knew one was a 2008 Chard, another a 2007 Merlot, etc. I am curious how my evaluation would be different if I didn’t know that basic information.
- Looking back over the more structured format of tasting notes enabled an effective comparison that isn’t quite possible using “context or narrative terminology.” That is, my tasting notes told me the tannin and acid flip-flopped when I tasted two Napa Cabs from the same producer in the same vintage; the difference was the vineyard location, which starts a domino effect of considerations such as slope, soil, sunlight, ripeness, etc. If I were writing “in context” I’d have noticed the difference in the wines but I’d have tended to attribute it more to, say, what I was eating with them rather than wine production factors per se.
Describing a wine as having “a pale ruby rim” is much different than describing it as “the same color as my steak done medium rare.” Describing another wine as “full-bodied with a long finish” is much different than saying “this is a wine with presence.” But, in my language, I mean the same thing.
A tasting note is its own story. Writing more of them, I suspect, may improve my narrative abilities overall but it will most definitely improve my understanding.
What do you think? Comment below and join the conversation!