Ep 231: How to Improve Wine Notes with Ian Renwick

Wine for Normal People

Alcohol, Lifestyle, Arts, Education, Food, Wine, Dining, Grapes

4.6 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2018

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Wine notes run the gamut -- from detailed and esoteric (meat blood? Madagascar vanilla?) to cute-sy and dumb (like sunshine and deliciousness!). But are they useful to us as wine drinkers? What's the goal of a note? What SHOULD it say for it to be meaningful?

Ian and I discuss the state of notes and what we think could make them better. You'll let us know if we're on to something...

Here's an outline of what we discuss:

1. The purpose of a tasting note

2. Communication in wine and whether it's ok to have a lexicon (we debate -- I'm pro, he's con)

3. How wine pros are told to communicate and how that muddles things. We touch on our "outsider" perceptions of certifications (since we both came from other industries). Here are links to the grids we reference:

Court of Master Sommeliers

WSET

4. How critics communicate and how THAT muddles things

5. How marketers communicate and how THAT muddles things

6. And finally, getting to a better note -- what is normal and helpful? How do we all communicate better about taste sensation/aroma?

Here are some other articles on notes that we considered before we recorded:

From Decanter:

Jane Anson's article that spurred the discussion

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Thanks for
0:08.0	downloading Wine for Normal People Radio,
0:10.0	the podcast for people who like wine but not the snobbery that goes with it.
0:14.0	I'm Elizabeth Schneider, a certified Silmaier and certified specialist of wine.
0:20.0	And I'm MC Ice, just a wine-loving normal person.
0:23.0	Ian, you're back.
0:24.0	I really am.
0:25.0	I never thought I get you back.
0:27.0	I thought this was the end.
0:28.0	Well, you know, you've got to be nice to me and just ask me really nicely
0:31.0	and look what happens.
0:32.0	Everyone loves you.
0:33.0	You're very popular, but now with your jaded pellet's empire.
0:37.0	Oh, by the way, I think I did tell you, I met a guy who said that he was going to be in
0:41.7	your neck of the woods. I was doing this speaking event at the master's golf tournament and he was like,
0:47.0	I'm taking a trip down. He was English and he was like, I'm taking a trip down to Dartmouth more and. And I was like, well, I have a wine store for you.
0:55.0	I'll tell you what, you know, nothing much better than cycling around Dartmoor
0:59.4	looking for wine shops.
1:00.3	I mean, what more can you want in life, frankly I don't know but you need you know what you
1:03.9	need to do is you need to do what they did with the tour de fransia in the US. Do you know what
1:09.1	I'm talking about? So you're saying you're saying I need a camel pack? No you get a camel pack, fill it up with better wine, and then put the straw in and you're all set.
1:21.0	He will be all set. It may, you know, he may end up, he may end up ramming a few sheep or if you
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Wine for Normal People, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Wine for Normal People and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.