We’ll stick with smiley faces & stars on our tasting notes.
This pages is from my booklet at a recent tasting of amazing northern Italian wines where I met lots of growers we work with and tasted so many delicious wines. There were lots of smiley faces in the book that day. (And a lot of tannin on my teeth at the end of it, so I wasn’t smiling so much on the train home…)
Seriously though, how can you reduce to a number something that appeals to your own taste & emotion and that depends so much on context; when you drink it, where you are, who you’re with, how your day has been, maybe your memories of visiting the region or producer the wine is from, or when you last drank it…? Giving scores to wines feels wrong and clumsy.
“You should like this ‘cos I gave it 19 out of 20!” Not our style.
Obvs, you’re the only one who knows what you enjoy drinking most and no one should judge you on that. And if you want to use numbers or stars to help you remember how much you loved (or hated) something, then that’s cool.
We’ll carry on looking for wines that make us smile though, not give high scores, wines we think our customers will enjoy but in the sure and certain knowledge that not everyone will like everything and that that is fine and is one of the most wonderful things about wine.
All we hope is that everyone will have a spirit of adventure, try something different from time to time, keep an open mind and be prepared for fresh tastes and new experiences. Of course we’ll write slightly more elaborate tasting notes for the wines we buy so our customers and colleagues know what to expect, and to give some of the story behind the wine, an explanation as to how it came to be.
Basically, the reason we drink wine and enjoy selling it is because we dig it. Good vibes only.
