The “balsamics”

Do tell, is that a jaunty touch of Modena in my Merlot?

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So many tasting notes that accompany wines (especially on the back labels) are simply laughable.

Somehow it’s believed that, “Fresh, but strong”, “Forward and yet reserved”, or “Very much beef, but not quite cow” actually mean something. Thankfully I’ve never actually seen that last one in the wild, only the concept of it.

This laughable state is to a large degree unfortunate, as tasting notes, when done correctly, are actually a fine system to understand a wine without having tasted it. A great example of this is with deductive blind tasting practice in pairs, where one person will smell and taste a wine, describing it for another person who then has to identify it based upon the aspects that were listed. When both people are well-trained in the system, it’s quite reasonable to achieve reliable results.

Any normal person would find this to be insanity as thankfully for everyone else who just wants to enjoy the liquid, points became a popular system. It’s much easier to understand that a wine which costs 10€ and has 93 points is a solid value and gives a lot more satisfaction than trying to understand if it’s the wine with dry strawberries or fresh wild strawberries that’s the better option. That said, you still need all the lunatics doing blind tasting practice to be able to reliably understand wines to dole out the points.

As an outsider who arrived to Catalunya already trained in wine, I discovered that some things were a touch, well, “different”. Indeed fruits and herbs come into play, but so do a lot of words that really have no business being there. A phrase such as “un fons làctic” (a lactic bottom/background?) tells you exceptionally little about that wine if you’re trying to understand the wine beyond simply being a number.

This “different” approach to tasting notes then trickles into any kind of deductive blind tasting system as I see that those who win contests here as simply people who have tried the wines before and seem to remember them. There’s no logical conclusion and it’s less blind tasting and much more, blind guessing.