Wine Valentine
The best way to lean to swim is getting your feet wet. Let me explain the Dashboard’s practical application.
Writing Your Cellar Notes (Is There a Formula for Building Your Wine Collection?)
Put the Dashboard method to work for yourself; hone in your style. There are expert cellar masters who take notes on their wines. A person with a large wine cellar needs tracking per bottle. The Dashboard ranking method does that. Open a bottle, rate the wine by Taste, Looks, and Cost. But once a bottle is shelved, will a wine buyer decide to find more of the same style?
The more creative your description, the more fine and exclusive cellar notes are. Try including fun phrases like “dry as a warm granite stone in sunshine; sharp as the crack of lightening, dank like mold in a dark cellar; bright as the sparkle in my girlfriend eyes; a taste of dark twisted licorices, etc.?
Here’s the point for writing your cellar notes. The final ranking per bottle is yours: ME, myself! Only you define what flavors, smells, color, and cute things you like in the glass.you evaluate how much wine to buy. Using it becomes a habit.
How the Dashboard becomes practical:
There must be a “better mouse trap” to catch a wine’s character. The T-L-C Dashboard becomes a consistent foundation. Wine contains so many different interacting senses when tasting. It this platform rating method that leads into Cellar notes.
The device guides the consumer to a best decision. When using its ratings, Dashboard out-preforms a common point-based ranking. Further, the actual cellar notes are concrete. Anyone can carry the Dashboard model in memory, much like your cell phone # or home address. Even more, the method can serve as a printout for a formal wine tasting.
The T-L-C Dashboard is a fluid matrix with three dimensions. Their combination allows twenty-seven choices for every wine. The graph below shows rating scales for a tasting. Its three key letters coincide with three key wine elements: Taste, Looks, and Cost. Each of the letters (T-L-C) identifies interaction at every taste, which leads to a taster’s personal assessment of that wine: action decision
Each letter rates quality. Begin with the highest number down to the lowest. A rating with number # 3 carries the highest, most favorable tasting score: Best. The # 2 gives a moderate score: Better. A rating of # 1 is the lowest score, meaning it’s the least desirable, drinkable: good. Ratings become reversed of a Good, Better, Best rating scale.
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Qualifier I #3 (best) I #2 (better) I #1 (lowest)
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T= taste # 3: Flavor-Highest/ # 2: Flavor-Average/ #1: Flavor-the lowest,
(On the tongue) Best tasting/ good tasting/ but drinkable
subtleties. enjoyable
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L= Looks # 3: Color & Clarity , #2: Color & Clarity, #1: Color & Clarity_
(Seen with the eyes) -Highest/ best/ -has good color, bottle the lowest, passable
brilliant in color, label info, art work,. , unexciting.
bottle, label info, legs, etc
art work, legs,
cork, etc.
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C= Costs #3: priced greater # 2: mid-range #1: Falls below $20;
(Pay with the wallet) than $50 or of $ 25-$50, wines priced for
a library level wine. but higher than largest sector of buyers.
the $14 average
This application really comes in handy for rating a wine. The TASTING experience continues through its
• TASTE the wine to find the nuances inside that one pour.
• LOOKS brings attention to important anchors surrounding your purchased bottle about the cork, bottle, body, label, color, legs, etc.
• COST is about dollar comfort level. Can you appreciate an elite level (#3) priced more than $100? Is the quality of the wine in your glass of library/ estate level (#2), priced around $ 25- $ 60? Are you kicked-back with an O.K. level (#1) wine at $15 or less? Make your Action Decision based from your Tasting Notes with real reasons for your decisions.
The Dashboard’s three-dimensional combination solidifies an Action decision. This T-L-C method makes any fluidly tasting concrete. It searches out multi-dimensional flavors for individual wines and finds your style.
The Nose is where tasting begins. Our olfactory gland lets us smell stuff. Take notes of your impression: tracking and finding fragrances in a wine. Pleasure begins swirling the wine around the glass and sniff. Taste for each varietal’s distinctive characteristic along:
Taste is the foundation for finding flavors. Rate how this wine fits preferences.
Taste includes scales of Universal criteria compose the rating:
• Nose (what does it smell like)
To go more in depth, refer to U C Davis Wine Aroma Wheel
• Body (full, thin, round, weak)
• Flavors/ nuances--- dryness/sweetness/acidity
• Finish—light/heavy tannins/ sweetness, etc.
Looks includes more than a causal look for the rating. Eyeball the wine you hold.
• Color (wines vary in depth of color, and color is directly linked to its beauty.)
• Legs (does it cling to the glass, run down into the wine, making a rim?)
• Clarity (non-cloudy & without sediment.)
Your final evaluation is reflected by a single number. For example, if you tasted an outstanding wine with T=3, L=3, C=3, your cellar notes might read: “Buy bottles to cellar”. If you found a good wine with T=3, Looks =2, C=2, your cellar notes might read: “Buy a few bottles for everyday; can serve to guests”. When you tasted a wine with low numbers as T=1, Looks=1, Cost=1, your cellar notes might read: “Drink it now”- - - “Don’t buy”- - - “Add to cellar wines”.
Below are a taster’s real-time cellar notes. Each bottle read something like this:
2015
Zinfandel
Terra Doro Winery
Taste: The 2015 has a fruity nose, a deep red color, and fine legs. Tasting has dark chocolate, cherry, and clove. The winemaker says he made this vintage with care. The finish has an earthy tannin taste. #2.
Looks: I liked this Zin, because it had those Zin characteristics and is reasonability priced. First, the winemaker stuck a genuine cork in each bottle, letting us know we could store his stuff for a while #2.
Cost: under $25. #1.
Dashboard rating: T=2, L=2, C=1. Action decision: it is a “drink it now” wine.
2014
Chardonnay
Chalk Hill Estates Winery
Chardonnay was the first white wine where I got serious about wine:
Taste: The nose is fruity, ripe dandelion, which matches its fine light-yellow color…. O.K. it does have weak legs but is bottled with a genuine cork.
In tasting/drinking, its bright apple, pear along with lemon jump up front. More sampling, sipping and drinking has minerals with a sandalwood finish. #3.
Looks: The pour looks true Chard. Here’s on that is to drink now or serve at dinner. Store it or gift it. All is good. #3.
Cost: more than $25 per bottle. #2.
Dashboard rating: T=3, L=3, C=2. Action decision: buy more to for the future.
2015
Cross J Norton
Stone Hill Winery
They were kind enough to share their best pick from their tastings of Norton wines. The Cross-J. Norton was much better than we had experienced.
Taste: It had a good fruit nose. The wine was smooth, different from the bitty, gritty, heavy Missouri Norton’s. In drinking, we enjoyed real nuances of black cherry, cocoa, slate and very light tannin. #2
Looks: This wine maker discovered using stainless steel in fermentation, rather than oak. The process produced a finer quality wine. This Norton had legs in light purple, compared to dark red of others. Also, the bottle was corked with a steel twist top, which seems to go with it as a stainless-steel product. # 3
Cost: Here is a Norton to enjoy now, or surprise others by bringing to a party. More than $25 per bottle. # 2
Dashboard rating: T=2, L=3, C=2. Action decision: buy more to for the future.