The Wine Atlas

Wine tasting notes

Structured tasting notes that teach rigour, save time, and keep everything connected.

For learners, the form guides the tasting in the right order and builds disciplined habits without doing the thinking for you. For experienced tasters, it makes notes faster to capture, easier to keep, and always at hand instead of scattered across paper. Everything stays linked together too: tasting notes, wine log, cellar records, and event results all sit in one connected system.

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New to wine tasting

Start with the beginner flow and learn the rhythm of a tasting note.

You do not need a big vocabulary to begin. The point is to look, smell, taste, and record a few useful observations in a consistent order so the process starts to feel familiar.

Quick note

Begin with a short personal note. This is where you capture the headline impression before you start analysing: what stood out, what the occasion was, or the one thing you want to remember later. It keeps the note human before you move into the more structured parts.

Saves go to Completed notes, where you can revisit and edit details or add photos anytime.

Quick note

Enjoyment:
(0/10)

Wine type

Aromas (pick what applies)

Structure

Wine type

Choose the broad style first. Is it red, white, rosé, sparkling, fortified, or orange? This matters because it frames what you are about to look for and keeps the rest of the form relevant to the wine in the glass.

Saves go to Completed notes, where you can revisit and edit details or add photos anytime.

Quick note

Enjoyment:
(0/10)

Wine type

Aromas (pick what applies)

Structure

Appearance

Look before you smell. Tilt the glass to about a 45-degree angle over a white surface and check the rim first, then the core.

For reds, use purple if you can see any hint of blue at the rim, ruby if it is simply red, and garnet if you can see any hint of orange at the rim.

For whites, think in terms of lemon-green, lemon, gold, or amber according to how much colour development you can see. Lemon-green is used when you can see any hint of green at the core. Most young dry whites will fall into pale lemon territory.

Then assess depth. In reds, pale means you can see through the wine easily, medium means you can still see and just about read the text beneath the glass, and deep means you can no longer read or even see the text. In whites, depth is about how far in from the rim the colour becomes evident.

Saves go to Completed notes, where you can revisit and edit details or add photos anytime.

Quick note

Enjoyment:
(0/10)

Wine type

Aromas (pick what applies)

Structure

Aromas

Start broad rather than specific. Fruit, floral, herbal, spice, or earth is enough. At the beginning, the important thing is to identify the main cluster first. Then pay attention to the individual flavours sitting inside that cluster. If you identify red fruit and notice a cherry-like flavour, it is useful to look at the related flavours within that same cluster as well. That might feel like cheating at first, but it is actually part of the learning process: it helps build association, teaches you to think in families of aroma, and makes it easier later to break those families down into more precise components.

Saves go to Completed notes, where you can revisit and edit details or add photos anytime.

Quick note

Enjoyment:
(0/10)

Wine type

Aromas (pick what applies)

Structure

Structure

Structure is the shape of the wine in your mouth. Is it dry or sweet? Soft or sharp? Light or full? For beginners, this is often the most useful part of the note because it gives you a reliable way to compare wines even when aroma words are still hard to find.

Saves go to Completed notes, where you can revisit and edit details or add photos anytime.

Quick note

Enjoyment:
(0/10)

Wine type

Aromas (pick what applies)

Structure