Last week I talked about why it’s a good idea to take wine notes. This week we’ll go through the tasting note for one wine together. To do this properly, you’ll need the following materials:

• 1 bottle 2003 M. Chapoutier Belleruche Rouge Côtes du Rhône. Its label, like all Chapoutier labels are in Braille. If you’re new to wine tasting and become frustrated, just run your fingers across the Braille on the label; I would imagine that learning to taste wine is 100 times easier. If you can’t find this wine at a local wine shop, try to get another good Côtes du Rhône, which will naturally taste a bit different but won’t be wildly off the mark.
• 1 tasting glass. A good tasting glass tapers in at the top to help concentrate odors. You can taste wine without a decent glass, but it’s a little like playing tennis with a bent old wooden racket.
• A blank Wine Tasting Note Form. You can download one ON THIS PAGE.
• Tasting note example for the 2003 M. Chapoutier Belleruche Rouge Côtes du Rhône . You can download it ON THIS PAGE.
• Wine Aroma Wheel. Not absolutely necessary but can be a big help when you’re searching for the words to describe what you smell and taste. The original can be purchased at http://www.winearomawheel.com/, or good online version can be found at Berry Brothers and Rudd’s website.

You’ll also need about 15 minutes of quiet time in an odor free, well lit, preferably neutrally colored room (white is best). Usually a tasting note should take no longer than 5 minutes, as you’ll become acclimated to the aromas and flavours of the wine with more time, however, this guided note will take a bit longer. One way to combat your acclimation is to take breaks of 1 minute or so.

OK, let’s do it! Every entry below corresponds exactly with a part of The Tasting Note Form:

First, let’s take care of business with the background information on the top of the form.
_______________________________________________________

Tasting Date and Location: This very simple part is also one of the most important as where and when a wine was tasted is very helpful in triggering your smell memory.

Wine Name: In this case the wine has a name in addition to the Region and Producer: Belleruche Rouge. Note that in many cases there isn’t a name in addition to the Region and Producer (ie. Guigal Côtes du Rhône, Antinori Chianti Classico, etc.), so sometimes this part of the form is simply left blank.

Producer: Usually very easy to determine – in this case front and center on the label – M. Chapoutier – but can sometimes pose a problem.
Region/Appellation: This part is sometimes confused with the grape variety (ie Chablis is a region, with Chardonnay grape variety) In this case, it’s the Côtes du Rhône.

Grape Varieties: New world wines are most often labeled with the grape variety or varieties that they are made from. Old world wines often require a little research such as going to the producer’s or importer’s website. In this case it was easy as the varieties Grenache and Syrah were listed on the back label. However, if you want to get more precise, we can go to the M. Chapoutier website and find that this wine is usually made from 80% Grenache and 20% Syrah.

Alcohol: Funny enough, this is one of the first things I look at on a label. Usually with morbid curiosity to see just how high it is! The 13.5% here used to be considered high but now is fairly average.

Vintage: 2003 was an extremely hot year in France and the Rhone valley, with most grapes picked very early. Early picking usually means the grapes do not get the time to develop the depth or complexity of flavours that they would with a longer ripening season. A hot year can also mean higher alcohol levels.

Price: Value for money is an eternal issue in the wine world. I always regret if I leave off the price. Suggestion: always get an itemized receipt from your retailer for wines consumed at home.
_______________________________________________________

Now, let’s take a look at the wine. This is where the well-lit neutral room comes in handy. Observe the wine on a white background like a blank sheet of paper.

Colour Depth: The intensity of depth are relative within red, white and rose wines. White and rose wines will not get as dark as red wines and vice versa. Also, red wines get lighter with age while whites tend to get darker. In this case the depth is medium, almost pale, as the wine as Grenache adds little color to the darker Syrah in the blend.

Colour Hue: The hue in all types of wine change with age and increased exposure to oxygen. From left to right, the scales go from youngest to oldest. In this case the wine is still fairly youthful just between purple-red and ruby. Since I’m between the classifications, I circle both. Feel free to do this when you are between any of the terms on this form.

Clarity: Clarity used to be of utmost importance since lack thereof indicated spoilage. Virtually all wines were fined or filtered to remove any trace of sediment. Since many wines are now unfiltered and may have a slight haze of sediment, only marked cloudiness indicates spoilage.

I’ve also added a note about the rim, which is lighter than the core, or wine in the center of the glass which we notated above. This information is not absolutely necessary for beginners but can tell a little about the concentration of the solids in the wine. Here we have a narrow magenta rim which is fairly typical for a young Cote du Rhone.
_______________________________________________________

OK, the big moment, we’re actually going to smell the wine. Give the glass a big swirl to release the aromas above the surface of the wine and very gently inhale as if you were smelling a flower.

Note on wine faults: The bottle I tasted had no faults so the only ones you have the possibility of encountering are ones outside of the winemaker’s control: cork taint or cooked. Cork taint is the unhappy reality of using cork. It affects – according to different sources – between 1 and 5% of all wines sealed with cork. It has the odor of wet cardboard and robs the wine of fruit flavors. Cooked is caused by faulty or careless storage where the wine has been exposed to high temperatures and is literally cooked and tastes so. A young wine like this one shouldn’t taste like stewed prunes. If you detect either of these faults, stop your tasting and return the bottle to your retailer for a replacement.

Aroma Intensity: Some grape varieties, such as Muscat Blanc, produce naturally powerful aromas. With a simple Côtes du Rhône such as this one we can hope for something more aromatic but the moderate level of intensity of this wine is typical.

Development: The age of a wine can be detected in the hue of the wine and also on the nose. Young wines will usually have smells that associated with the grape variety they are made from. With age they will take on more mature aromas like tobacco while becoming softer and more complex. Most wines, however, aren’t made to age and will simply become progressively less fruity and at a certain point, undrinkable. Côtes du Rhône is a wine made to drink within a few years of bottling.
Aromas: This is where your aroma wheel can come in handy. Try to pick out a few of the main odors in the wine. You don’t need to describe an cornucopia of aromas I try to write them down in the order I perceive them; the terms towards the end are the more minor notes.
_______________________________________________________

Time to taste: take a good mouthful of wine (approx. 1 oz) and let it coat all parts of your tongue.

Dry/Sweet: You can expect almost all red wines to be dry and not very dry or medium dry. This wine is a typical dry red wine: there is still a very slight perception of sweetness due to the fruit and alcohol, without which it would be considered very dry. There are some inexpensive Shiraz wines like [yellowtail] that can be considered medium dry.

Body: This is how the wine feels on your palate, due to the amount of alcohol and extract (soluble solids), which will be light to heavy with all shades in-between. Since this is a relative scale, new winetasters don’t have much to gauge this with. One common error is to call all wines light-bodied and relative to a milkshake, all wines are light bodied. A very light bodied wine will feel lighter than water in your mouth while a very full bodied wine will feel more like Port (which is a rich fortified wine). A word of caution: don’t be fooled by tannins (see below).
Acidity: All wine is naturally acidic, so again our scale is relative to other wines. Acidity can be sensed on the sides of the tongue with a slight tingling sensation. You will also start to salivate a bit. The scale here goes from battery acid-like excessive to flabby. Flabby gets its name from the blah sensation when there just isn’t enough acid. Red wines tend to be less acidic than white wines and our Cote du Rhone isn’t an exception: not very acidic, but not flabby, also known as smooth.

Tannins: Red wines get their color and tannins from contact with grape skins during fermentation. Tannins can also come from oak barrels but not in this case as this wine was most likely fermented in stainless steel tanks. Tannins are sensed on the top of the tongue: high, hard tannins will have a pronounced raspy drying effect. This can confuse the sensation of weight as the drying sensation seems to make the wine seem lighter. Keep this in mind especially with young red wines. The tannins here are as would be expected from a Grenache based wine, fairly weak but slightly astringent. Remember there are two scales here for level and type.

Flavour Intensity: No suprises here: the intensity on the palate is similar to the intensity on the nose. Some wines will disappoint with a lower intensity on the palate and a rare one will surpass the nose.

Flavours: The flavours sensed here will usually be similar to the aromas perceived on the nose. The difference here is that the flavours are now entering your nasal cavity from the back door via the rear of your mouth instead of directly trhough your nostrils. Again, concentrate on picking out a few of the major flavours. The secondary flavours/sensations (or lack thereof) before you spit or swallow are often called the mid palate. Whatever you call them, try to record the flavours in the order you perceive them.

Finish: The length of a wine is often an indication of quality. It’s also fairly easy to determine. Just time the amount of time it takes for the flavour intensity to drop off substantially after spitting or swallowing. It may take a few times for you to get the hang of it. I get around 4 seconds or medium length.

Futher Flavours/Conclusions/Food Pairing: Further Flavours are the predominant flavor(s) of the finish, in this case I get black pepper. Conclusions are your general assessment of the wine. I found the Belleruche to be a good casual drinking wine. The alcohol did, however, seem a little out of balance and is probably due to the very hot growing season. Food Pairing is for recording what food was served with the wine and how well did it go; in this case I did a real laboratory example without food which is something I don’t recommend.

Rating: Use any scale you like or don’t use one at all. If you’re shopping for a rating system to use, you may want to have a look HERE.
So that’s it. If this was your first formal tasting note, congratulations! It only gets easier from here on out. All tasting notes I post on this site from here on will also be accompanied by my written notes on the tasting form in case you’d like to continue tasting along with me.