When I go to all these tastings - just got back from M&S and Tesco - we're given an awful lot of info about the wines, on the tasting sheet. In fact, not all. Asda, just give the name and price.

Are you lot interested in the alcohol, residual sugar or weird sorts of winemaking. I can add them to the tasting notes, but only if you're interested.

Feedback please.

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mel

Am interested in anything and everything about wine, so yes please if there is enough support.

I would be interested to know the alcohol content, this is important to me as I tend to avoid wines with a high alcohol content, 14%+

There are many who would argue the opposite but I have yet to enjoy a perfectly balanced wine at 14% or over, do they exist? Maybe I am over sensitive to alcohol, its one of the first things I pick up on on the nose and palate. I buy little to none Sth African wine (who wants a SB or Ch-Blanc at 14%?), avoid Californian wine (because you cant trust what % it states on the label) and have begun to go off Chilean Pinot Noir (does it ever come in anything other than 14%? ).

Anyway, like I said it’s a personal thing, I’m sure most people will have an example that (to them) proves the opposite but for now I like my reds around 13% and my whites around 11.5%.

I like to research the producers where possible, you can get quite a bit of information from this regarding a particular wine, production etc., any info you include can only benefit the forum, I think.

Right, I will, perhaps at the end of the note, before the date.

RS will mean residual sugar. I know you know, but everyone else might not.

For guidance and to put the residual sugar into context, under 2 grams per litre (g/l) is a dry wine, Fino sherry is probably less than 1 g/l but quite a few riper New World "dry" wines can have 5-7 g/l - Tesco Finest Denman Semillon 6.5 g/l.

If a wine has 10 or more you would know it was off dry. Gewurztraminer is often over 10 these days - Tesco Finest 13.8 g/l. Sauternes and vintage port both have around 100 g/l. Blossom Hill Blush Zin has 135 g/l !!

PX has about 350 to 400.

Curiously, champagne has around 12 g/l. This is brut style but because the grapes are picked so young and very acidic, the residual sugar doesn't show. Those sparkling wines with "no dosage" have zero RS. I had one this week and I found it challengingly dry. I love Fino sherry but with the bubbles very dry champagne is just too much for my poor mouth.

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mel

I might sometimes avoid a wine of over 14%, but I do have to admit that there are some very good, beautifully-balanced wines at this level, where you certainly wouldn't notice the alcohol (on the palate at least!). And equally there are plenty of wines of lower than 14% that wear their alcohol far less well.

Yes, have tasted some great South Africans today at 14% which didn't show it at all. I keep writing "seems hot for 13%" or "doesn't show its 14.5%" in notes because, as you say, knowing the alcohol doesn't always help.

And, good point earlier about the americans. They're allowed 1.5% +/- which makes a mockery of printing it on the label at all.

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mel

What I find most helpful in a tasting note is being told ..

a) is this wine a good example of it's type
b) how does it compare with other wines of that grape from that region

Being told that B&Q own label Barossa Semillon ( free case with every 663 tins of Dulux emulsion ) tastes of lemon and honey doesn't help as one women's lemon and honey is another man's lime and lanolin.

Much better than lemon and honey would be..

' Classic Aussie semillon..compares well with Peter Lehmann '

Eat a lychee and it reminds you of gewurztraminer...eat a gooseberry and it won't remind you of Marlborough or the Loire.

Gooseberry is the single most useless tasting note in existance and is used by winemakers and writers to describe just about every sauvignon blanc there is.

All I want for Jackson Estate 2007 is ' classic Marlborough ..big step up on Montana...tastes like Saint Clair '

As for Sancerre...we all know what good Sancerre tastes like but we describe it's aftertaste differently. To me it's green and nutty to others it's grapefruit and to some it's chalky minerals.

So trying to describe the flavours becomes unhelpful.....all that helps me now is being told that it's a classic Sancerre ...or not.

StroppyGoosegogs

See your point, but that doesn't allow for TNs that are either very complete or very interesting, does it? A style can be classic, but when it's "non-classic" it could be just about anything, no?

Why, goosegogs, do you give yourself that name if you don't connect it to your favourite grape.

You must have an imbalance. When I smell Marlborough SB, most of the time, I absolutely smell exactly gooseberries.

I met a winemaker once in South Africa who couldn't smell the TCA infection in corked wine. He just didn't have the receptor, or whatever.

I take on board everything you say, but I think you're in the minority on the goosegogs front.

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mel

errrr.... peach.

Goosegogs is in memory of a fantastic wine from the Loire that first got me into sauvignon blanc.

The wine was called The Gooseberry Patch and was sold for £4 by Oddbins. It was in a typical Loire sauv shaped bottle and on the label were gooseberries.

Oddbins stopped selling it about 3 years ago after a couple of lame vintages.

Tasted of crushed blackcurrent leaves .. like a restrained Marlborough.

I always get crushed blackcurrent leaves or passion fruit when smelling/tasting Marlborough sauvs...never gooseberry.

I agree that a wine can be classic and still be subtly different.

Wolf Blass Eaglehawk , Tim Adams and Banwell Farm Eden Valley riesling are all classic Aussie rieslings with lime and petrol. But the first is tart and acidic, the second is restrained with perfect acidity whilst the last also tastes of peach.

So extended TN are helpful.

But then Aussie riesling is of consistantly good quality so I guess knowing whether a wine is classic or not is only really necessary with big name French wines like Chablis/Pouilly Fume etc where the wines are all too often nondescript and lack their renowned minerality.