Tasting Notes - Revisited

For today's story, we have a guest writer.

Mark Reynier, Managing Director of Bruichladdich had something to add to my recent story about how Ratings/Tasting Notes are getting out of hand:

Ah, Kevin, another subject close to my heart.

The word ‘Tasting’ – like ‘love’ – is used in too many different  ways, most of them inappropriate. To me there are essentially four categories of ‘tasting’:

Professional Tasting -  (technical evaluating for purchase). You tend to think a wee bit harder when you are committing £100,000. It is a unique mix of detective skills, aptitude, neutrality, knowledge and above all – experience. It is an ability one acquires over many years.

Consumer Tasting  - (Scoring).  The heady mix of points, hyperbole and reputation, where tasters wading through a myriad of diverse samples attempt to separate the wheat from the chaff. And be the first to make the name for some new discovery.

Comparative Tasting  - (Comparing like with like). This can take the form of both vertical and horizontal tastings: the same origin, several different years. Or the same age and several different origins. 

Tasting (drinking slowly) – what most folk do, thinking they are tasting.

Tasting notes fall into three categories:

• technical aide-memoire
• educational, and
• sales

I have my father’s professional tasting notes from the fifties and sixties for wines that were tasted in cask at that time – and knowing the wines today I can confirm that the observations he made all those years ago are entirely accurate.

Commenting or Tasting?

Anybody can comment on a whisky, but to really taste correctly, fundamental principles must be adhered to ensure a level field - a blank canvas. Commenting on a dram after two pints of beer, a steak and kidney pie, chocolate pudding and a coffee does not constitute a tasting note. Nor does sampling 10 malts in a row: your brain & palate simply cannot handle it. Professional wine tasters don’t even drink the stuff - they merely sniff, sip and spit it out – and they will do more than ten at a go.

I have written my own professional tasting notes for over 25 years, using the exact same environment, technique, number, regulation and routine. These are stark, technical assessments, devoid of hyperbole; a kind of short hand 360 degree evaluation that enables me to recall exactly what I felt about  something - They are dull.

I have also adapted those notes into Consumer tasting notes, a language that is altogether different, in order to try and convey a realistic and useful impression - taking into account value, contemporaries, reputation, vintage, future, etc, etc.  I can confirm how difficult it is to write such notes accurately, sincerely and interestingly to convey an overall impression in a language that the reader - all readers - will understand.

Some consumer tasting notes will be written deliberately to provoke, to stand out, show off, to grab the reader’s attention – and are usually exaggerated in order to give an over all impression. Subtle tasting notes do not sell - simplistic points do.  Marks are merely an extension of this.  They cannot possibly be definitive.

I have had the pleasure of several of Robert Parker’s 100 point wines – a mark that denotes perfection.  These are good wines and they may have appeared at that time to be perfect to the taster – but they are not now. Similarly, blind, show or magazine tastings are equally flawed unless the correct tasting order is observed, the number tasted is severely limited and the conditions are identical etc, etc.

In the end, some tasting notes are written with a genuine desire to convey to the reader the experience the taster had (Jim [McEwan] takes 2 hours per tasting note) and others are rattled off using hip buzz words that imply technical knowledge (e.g., Butyric).

Having said that, if one can identify with a certain writer’s palate that seems to match your own, or at least the language does – in that case stick with it.

Mark Reynier
Managing Director
Bruichladdich Distillery

Comments

[Jeffrey Topping-Wild Scotsman Whisky]

Spot on! Your comments were both to the point and informative. I can only hope that the average consumer will find such wisdom available when they begin to navigate the world of Whisky.

The self pro-claimed experts should take a step back and ask themselves, "Whom am I really trying to impress"? The consumer is looking for a guide and not a linguistics haggis hunt. Everyone's pallet is different and each consumer will gravitate to the styles and/or brands, which best satisfy their personal tastes.

Well, I am off to enjoy another Tea Party,

Slainte,

Jeffrey Topping
President
Wild Scotsman Whisky and Spirits

[intjudo]

It's interesting how "give the people what they want" doesn't seem to apply to certain industries: women's fashion and consumer-oriented Scotch tasting guides, for example.

As a newbie consumer of Scotch who has spoken to many such, I can say quite definitively that the piece of information that is most important to us is: how strong is that "alcohol" taste? You know, the rubbing-alcohol-taste that is (roughly) inversely proportionate with the price tag.

The second thing we want to know is, how strong is the peat flavor? Even if we don't know what peat is, we want to know how "strong" the flavor is.

A 1 - 5 rating on "alcoholy" and a 1-5 on "mild to strong" is much more useful to a newbie than nuanced and flowery descriptions of the actual flavor.

The flavor is relatively unimportant to a newbie. As long as it's not too alcoholy and not to strong we'll probably like it.

But instead of making this information clear, reviewers prefer the self-brain-massaging exercise of burying the information (if indeed it's made available at all) underneath a mountain of...well you get the picture.

So here it is, on a silver platter, the secret to popular success as a reviewer of Scotch: 1) HOW ALCOHOLY ? 2) HOW STRONG ?

--intjudo

[MacFhearghais]

I appreciate your perspective, but when I was starting out (not too terribly long ago), those were not my concerns. Right from the start I gravitated toward flavor and aroma. Peatiness didn't make any sense to me, and how alcoholy rarely mattered because I was always urged to add water to high proofs.

The simplified gauge I might have been looking for was how sherried a scotch was. Back then and today as well, nothing turns me off faster than overly-sherried.

[intjudo]

MacFhearghais,

Fair enough...but if you'll pardon my saying so, it seems to me your experience is far from typical:

1. Unlike most Scotch drinkers you were destined to become deeply involved with Scotch. To me this indicates that your pallette and your passion for taste experience were probably advanced from the start; therefore I question the notion that your beginning experiences were typical.

2. For instance, none of the (limited) sources I've referred to have advised adding water to counter the "alcoholy" taste. Unlike most beginners, you obtained information from sources beyond reviews, other newbies and the labels on the bottles in the liquor store.

3. I've *never* heard another newbie mention "flavor" or "aroma" as distinguising characteristics. For the newbies I've spoken with it's *always* been how "strong" and/or how "smooth" the Scotch is. Newbies can't discriminate beyond strength and smoothness unless they're coached; I really think any reviewer who believes otherwise is out of touch with the vast majority of newbies.

4. ...and I've never heard *anyone,* advanced or newbie, mentione how "sherried" a Scotch is (one casual drinker I know has mentioned the difference the type of wood makes i.e. Glenmorangie Midiera). This seems like a relatively advanced observation to me...if you were at that level as a newbie I can't imagine your experinces in the begginning stages of your Scotch journey were typical.

Recently I bought the wrong bottle of Scotch. The flavor description was attractive and it was described as a 3.5 / 5.0 on a "peateyness" scale, so it seemed like a good bet. Unfortunately none of the reviews mentioned the strong "alcoholy" taste and the bottle will probably end up mixed with coffee and cream over the next year or so.

Unless that water trick works. I'll have to try that...but since it's already down at 40% I'm assuming it's more of a mellowing / aging issue than a strength issue.