Mar 18 2010
Wine Tasting Templates - 3 Reasons the Right Template Will Have You Tasting Like a Pro
It comes as a surprise to many amateur wine lovers that critics aren’t necessarily born with an innate ability to discern the quality or virtue of a wine. In fact, with appropriate application, time and practice anyone can become proficient at wine tasting. Let’s be honest…there are certainly worse things we could dedicate ourselves to than appreciating wine.
However, developing your knowledge of wine can be slow progress, unless of course you know some of the techniques and methods which allow you to advance your wine tasting skills in leaps and bounds. In this article we’ll look at how one wine tasting tool can do just that.
There are three really good reasons why having wine tasting templates can enhance your experience and knowledge of wine.
The Ease of Recollection
Firstly, and perhaps most obviously, they provide us with a medium to record our thoughts, experiences and overall impressions of each wine we taste. Have you ever enjoyed a great wine over dinner, or at a friends house, and thought ‘I must remember this‘ only to promptly get distracted by conversation and forget? The same thing can happen when partaking in winery tastings. At least in the latter case, we can usually remember which winery the great vintage was at (although if you’re anything like me and eschew the spit bucket in favor of swallowing…even that can become a challenge late in the day).
The Benefit of Posterity
Seriously though, being prepared to take note of each component and characteristic of a wine also accounts for the second good reason to use them, and that is that they provide a basis of comparison in the future. There’s two facets to this. On the one hand, it enables us to compare each vintage of a particular wine. Does the 96 hold up better than the 98 with better tannin structure? Was the 2004 a luscious balance of fruit and acidity whereas the 2007 is harsh? We can even compare the same wine of the same year drunk at different times, which can be integral for determining when a wine is at its prime. On the other hand, it also enables us to mark our own progress and knowledge of wine. If you dedicate even a year to recording as many wines as possible, you’ll be amazed at how much your awareness will have increased over that short period. With each new tasting, each new experience, and a stable foundation for reflection (your notes, of course) you’ll find yourself better able to evaluate the structure, body, aroma and flavor of wine. It’s both humbling and exciting to look back on the progress you have made each year. Exciting in the sense of seeing how much you as a wine appreciator have grown, and humbling insofar as our own growth is testament to how much we yet have to learn. It’s fun stuff!
A Focusing Of The Mind
So what’s the third reason? Wine tasting templates allow us to focus our mind during a tasting. This is important, because not all wine tasting templates are created equal. Some people suggest simply using a notebook. That’s fine once you have a bit of experience under your belt, and if that’s the case certainly any sort of paper and pen will be adequate. But for those less experienced in deciphering the various flavors, textures and aromas of wine, a blank page can leave us wondering what we’re really experiencing. A lot of notes which can be found in any given vintage can be both subtle, and not immediately easy to discern. There’s nothing wrong with having a wine tasting template which helps remind you how to taste wine. In fact, having a template specifically tailored to help you become accustomed to considering each facet of a wine can be one of the quickest ways to become proficient at tasting. It also avoids you wondering about how to taste wine.
The Wine Tasting Journal provides wine tasting templates which literally prompt your senses into experiencing each element of a wine, from start to finish, step by step.
Consider in detail each element of a wine, from color, viscosity, nose, taste, and body, whilst recognizing the balance of acidity, tannins, sugar and alcohol which can make or break a wine.
Our Wine Tasting Templates also allow you the flexibility to cater your notes to the nuances of each tasting you have, because if wine’s aren’t all created equally, wine tasting templates certainly aren’t either. Our templates were developed with a view to attaining the perfect balance between providing you with some direction whilst tasting a wine, but avoiding a ‘paint by numbers’ approach to ensure that your own preferences and knowledge of wine can still shine through.
Click here to see our Wine Tasting Templates and take your wine appreciation to the next level.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Patrick_J_Harper
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