You are set down in the crew mess with six glasses in front of you and the chief stew timing you. In an hour the owner arrives and wants to know which of the two Bordeaux the yacht bought last winter is drinking better tonight. Guesswork will not survive that conversation. A system will.
Why a system at all
A structured tasting approach forces you to look, smell and taste in a fixed order and to record what is actually there rather than what you hoped would be. It gives you a shared vocabulary with sommeliers, suppliers and knowledgeable guests, and it makes your notes comparable from one month to the next. The ground covered here is the ground assessed in GUEST Unit 13, a Specialist module governed by IAMI; the GUEST Program accepts WSET Level 2 as an equivalent level of study, so the depth below is pitched accordingly.
Appearance
Hold the glass at 45 degrees against a white surface in neutral light.
| Observation | What to record | What it can hint at |
|---|---|---|
| Clarity | Clear or hazy | Haze can indicate an unfined wine or a fault |
| Intensity | Pale, medium, deep | Grape variety, extraction, climate |
| Colour | Lemon / gold / amber; purple / ruby / garnet / tawny | Age, oxidation, grape |
| Other | Bubbles, legs, sediment | Sediment means decanting is likely |
Colour is evidence, not proof. A deep purple young red suggests thick-skinned grapes such as Syrah or Cabernet Sauvignon, but tells you nothing definitive.
Nose
Swirl, then take short sniffs. Assess condition first (is the wine clean, or corked, oxidised, volatile?), then intensity (light, medium, pronounced), then aroma characteristics. Group what you find:
- Primary — from grape and fermentation: fruit, floral, herbaceous, spice.
- Secondary — from winemaking: oak (vanilla, cedar, smoke), lees (bread, yoghurt), malolactic (butter, cream).
- Tertiary — from ageing: dried fruit, mushroom, leather, honey, petrol in aged Riesling.
Palate
Take a decent sip, move it across the whole mouth, and work through the structural components in a fixed order every time:
- Sweetness — dry, off-dry, medium, sweet.
- Acidity — how much saliva floods the mouth afterwards.
- Tannin — the drying, gripping sensation on gums and tongue (reds).
- Alcohol — warmth at the back of the throat.
- Body — the weight and texture overall.
- Flavour intensity and characteristics — echo the nose vocabulary.
- Finish — how long the flavour persists after swallowing or spitting.
Conclusions
Only then draw conclusions: quality level, readiness for drinking, and, if you are working blind, a hypothesis about grape, climate and origin. State the evidence that leads you there — "high acidity, low alcohol, pronounced floral and lime, so a cool climate white, possibly Riesling" — rather than a bare guess.
Onboard Notes
- Taste in daylight or neutral light, never under coloured deck lighting; the colour assessment is worthless otherwise.
- Spit when you are working. You are on duty, and crew alcohol policy applies to tastings as much as to anything else.
- Never taste a guest's bottle without permission. Checking a wine for fault is a small pour into your own glass, with the guest's knowledge.
- xplor is not an accredited GUEST provider and not a WSET Approved Programme Provider. These lessons are preparatory study only: nothing here awards a unit, certificate or qualification, or counts toward one.