Wine Tasting Forms

Types of Wine Tasting Forms

You don't have to use the wine tasting forms given out by the wineries, you can also go to your favorite bookstore and flip through many variations of the “How to Taste Wine” books and find tasting forms as well. Some are good, some are bad, some have too much info to track, some have not enough, some are silly and some are just plain strange. You will want to find something useful for different applications.

What a Form Should Be

Wine forms should be utilitarian. There are many different types: some forms are just meant for one wine, others are meant to track a few different wines. You can even find wine form books that are just meant to be for wine tasting notes and nothing else. The one page per wine form is useful for tracking your own wines that you’ve tasted.

Forms set up in columns and rows on a regular sheet of paper give you more bang for your buck because you can track more than one wine on a page. Each type of form has its use.

What Goes on the Form?

What should be on the form is our next question. There are some basics that you will find on each form:

• 1)Wine—includes winery, varietal and descriptions (i.e. single vineyard or county)
• 2)Vintage
• 3)Price
• 4)Nose
• 5)Taste
• 6)Finish

Those are the basics…there are more categories you could put on:

• 1)Color
• 2)Comments
• 3)Individual award
• 4)Group award

When keeping your own wine notes on wines that you taste (and you know what they are when you taste them) it’s good to have the basics. Many people get overwhelmed when they have to fill out too many categories. They tend to lose themselves in the specific questions instead the overall evaluation of the wine.

Filling Out the Form

When it comes to filling out the forms, try to be expressive as possible. In the “Nose” part of the form don’t write down “smells yummy.” Bad note taker! Write down what you smell-fruits, scents, minerals, chemicals or whatever smells your nose picks up. Some people find that wine wheels with the aromas and scents on them to help out wine evaluation. Be objective—save the opinions for the end when you can give it an award that reflects what you personally think of the wine.

Other Types

When wine is judged, the wine judge does not have any information about the wine except for what the varietal is and maybe the cost (called blind tasting)—and that’s it. If you have a group of friends that like to get together and blind taste wines, then this form would work well for you too. What’s on this form, you ask? Simple:

• 1)Entry number — If you are blind tasting many wines, you need to be able to track them.
• 2)Judging comments — This combines nose, taste, color, descriptions, etc.
• 3)Individual award — This is the rating you give the wine yourself.
• 4)Group award — This is the rating the group you are tasting with awards the wine.

These forms can be used to track multiple wines since each entry number is on a separate row. The awards part of the form is actually kind of fun. When you are able to judge the wine you are tasting, it creates an element of excitement. When you judge with others, you can see how your award compares to what others give it. This is the form used for wine competitions so the judges are doing the exact same thing. The award you give can be a point, A-B-C or Gold-Silver-Bronze system, it doesn’t matter.

Be Expressive - Have Fun!

Whichever wine forms you choose to use, make sure it’s easy and functional for you. You can try out different ones—or if you are computer savvy, load up your spreadsheet/word-processing software and design your own! Make sure you take good notes, enjoy yourself, and save the forms for future use when you need to go back and research your tasting notes. Cheers!