This is going to be one of those columns that is more useful if you get involved. That’s why I’m telling you now, right at the start, that it would be fantastic, absolutely bloody marvelous in fact, as wonderful as a ham sandwich and a cup of tea on a bright spring day, if you add your two cents once you have finished reading. I’ll try to keep it short, so you have more time to type your comments. This column is about tasting notes.

Which means it’s about language. Language and its relation to wine. At the heart of it, it is about our ability, or inability to communicate what we taste, feel, and experience in a useful manner. Use, I think, is the important word. One desires deeply that those who communicate about wine, who judge and describe wine for a living are at least useful in their communications. The extent of their usefulness is judged, I’d guess, by the degree by which their communication is used to influence our purchasing decisions.

I tend to get sidetracked when I write about language and wine, veering off into English Lit fueled expositions on the failure inherent in language. I start describing the Author’s wake, and postulate about whether Derrida was a Burgundy of Bordeaux man. I will hold myself back today. Today, I want to keep this as simple and as direct as possible. I want to introduce the topic of tasting notes, and hope to find out which type you prefer

Tasting notes are the most direct way in which wine writers communicate about the wines they taste. They are short descriptions that try their best to sum up a wine. I began thinking about them again when I read a post on the South African wine blog, Grape by my favourite local wine writer, Tim James. He was criticised by an American reader for a lyrical tasting note of the Beaumont Hope Marguerite 2011. It is a vintage I have yet to taste, but it is always one of my favourite Chenins in the country. Here is the tasting note:

Ripe but not sugary, concentrated but subtle and understated, lightly rich but nervy, it is a lovely, serene wine that will grow even better and more complex over quite a few years. It is pricey at R150, but worth every cent.

I thought this to be a pretty straight-forward description. It made sense. I got a feeling for what the wine would be like. I have no real idea of what it tastes like, but I at least know that it is living up to its reputation and I should hustle and get myself a bottle. But not so, according to the American reader who replied:

Exactly how does ‘lightly rich’ wine taste? Not to speak of ‘nervy’, ‘serene’ and other totally meaningless adjectives. Exactly how many years is ‘quite a few’? I live in Northern California and love drinking good wine without the bullshit. You, sir, go too far.

Now I am not sure what his living in Northern California has to do with anything, maybe in Southern Cali they hate drinking good wines and love bullshit, I don’t know.  I will leave the proclivities Northern and Southern Californians for another day. The one thing I hope is that after he and his Northern Californian friends have drunk all their bullshit-free good wine that he is far less crotchety.

You can find Tim’s response and the rest of the exchange here.

It got me thinking of the different types of tasting notes that are out there. I, myself, prefer high-flying crazy notes that will as soon turn a wine into a horny skunk with a penchant for cuban cigars as it will an Elephant performing ballet on a tightrope above a field of buttered popcorn. I love when wines are personified, when I can feel the writer has rattled around in his or her imagination’s tool-box and tried to create a note worthy of the wine. Notes that don’t try to replicate the flavours of the wine, but instead attempt to communicate the experience. That’s what I like.

The most useful, I suppose, has to be the sommelier’s tasting note. The efficient, cold, calculated note:

Medium intensity hued red, dry on the palate, medium tannin, medium alcohol, more graphite, black fruit, medium weight, medium-plus flavor intensity, some herbal notes on the finish. 88 points.

I hate these notes, but they are useful for wine professionals, and accountants.

What about the shopping-list American versions? Here is one from Mr. Parker

[the wine] delivers an almost inordinate diversity of floral, herbal, citrus, and pit-fruit (predominately nectarine) elements, with the bitterness of fruit pits, smoky pungency of red currant and crushed stone, as well as notes of shrimp shell reduction and iodine inflecting a long, bittersweet, yet at the same time vibrant, buoyant finish.

Tim quotes one of Parker’s other tasters, David Schildknecht with a beaut:

…salt-spray, exotic, musky flowers, red currant, pomegranate, and mysteriously animal scents in the nose. A striking, shimmering, exchange of saline, alkaline, iodine and crustacean minerality with white peach, tart red fruits, citrus zest, and flowers on the palate, leads to a finish that positively sizzles with mineral, berry, and citrus intensity.

Ah, tasting notes, how ridiculous they can be. So, my question to you today, is what sort of notes do you prefer? Do you prefer haikus, or epic poems when it comes to wine descriptions? What I want to know from you is which wines descriptions do you find the most useful, or to phrase it differently, what does a tasting note need to include to be useful.

Also, if you have found any ridiculous tasting notes on your vinous travels, please add them as well.