Guide
Common wine tasting descriptors, and how to write a tasting note
Most people can taste far more than they can describe. A tasting descriptor is simply a familiar smell or flavour you use as a comparison — lemon, cherry, violet, black pepper, wet stone. Nothing has been added to the wine; you are naming what it reminds you of. This guide gives you the vocabulary, then a five-step method for turning it into a note you will still understand a year from now.
Step one
The aroma and flavour families
Work family by family rather than hunting for one perfect word. Smell the glass, decide which family is loudest, then pick the closest word inside it. Two or three accurate descriptors beat ten vague ones.
Fruit
The largest family and the easiest place to start. Ask two questions: which colour of fruit, and is it fresh, ripe, cooked or dried?
- · Citrus (lemon, grapefruit)
- · Green apple, pear
- · Peach, apricot
- · Tropical (pineapple, mango)
- · Red berry (strawberry, raspberry, cherry)
- · Black fruit (blackcurrant, blackberry, plum)
- · Dried fruit (fig, prune, raisin)
Floral
Usually delicate and easy to miss. Give the glass a swirl and smell again — floral notes tend to arrive after the fruit.
- · Blossom (elderflower, orange blossom)
- · Rose
- · Violet
- · Honeysuckle
Herbal and green
Fresh, leafy, sometimes sharp. Common in cool-climate whites and in reds picked earlier.
- · Cut grass
- · Mint, eucalyptus
- · Bell pepper
- · Blackcurrant leaf
- · Fennel, dill
Spice
Split these in two: grape spice comes from the fruit itself, baking spice usually comes from the barrel.
- · Black pepper
- · Clove, cinnamon
- · Liquorice
- · Vanilla
- · Nutmeg
Earthy and savoury
The words drinkers reach for last and remember most. They often mean the wine has age or a distinctive site.
- · Forest floor
- · Wet stone, flint
- · Mushroom
- · Leather
- · Cured meat
- · Tobacco
Oak and ageing
Notes made in the cellar rather than the vineyard. If a wine smells like a bakery or a bonfire, this is usually why.
- · Toast
- · Smoke
- · Coconut
- · Cedar
- · Butter, cream
- · Brioche, biscuit
Step two
Describing structure, not just smell
Aromas tell you what a wine tastes of; structure tells you how it feels. These five words do almost all the work, and they are the ones that help you find the same style again in a shop.
Structure varies with region, terroir, vintage and growing conditions; treat these as a starting frame rather than a fixed rule for any grape.
Step three
A five-step method for writing the note
- 1
Look
Colour and depth. Pale lemon or deep gold? Purple-rimmed or brick at the edge? Age and grape often show here first.
- 2
Smell
Swirl, then take two short sniffs. Name the loudest family, then one more. Stop at three.
- 3
Taste
Run through body, acidity, tannin, sweetness and finish in that order. Rate each one on a simple scale.
- 4
Conclude
Is it balanced? Would you drink it now or keep it? What food would you put beside it?
- 5
Score
Out of five, honestly. Your own scale is more useful to you than any critic's.
Worked example
What a finished note looks like
Sancerre, Loire Valley — Sauvignon Blanc
Pale lemon with a green tint. Grapefruit and blackcurrant leaf first, then elderflower and a chalky, wet-stone note underneath. Light bodied and bone dry, with zippy acidity that makes the mouth water, no tannin to speak of and a medium finish that keeps the citrus going. Balanced and refreshing rather than rich — a wine for goat's cheese or grilled fish, drinking well now. 4/5.
Three aromas, five structure words, a verdict and a score. That is the whole recipe.
Going deeper
How a sommelier assesses a wine
A professional assessment always runs in the same order, so nothing gets missed and two wines can be compared fairly. Switch any tasting to Sommelier assessment on the wine page to work through it step by step.
1. Appearance
Clarity, depth of colour and the colour itself. Colour hints at age: whites deepen towards gold and amber, reds fade from purple through ruby to garnet and tawny.
2. Nose
Is it clean or faulty? Then how strong the aromas are, what they are — primary (fruit, flowers, herbs), secondary (yeast, cream, oak) and tertiary (dried fruit, nut, mushroom, leather) — and how developed the wine smells.
3. Palate
Judge sweetness, acidity, tannin, alcohol, body, flavour intensity and finish one at a time before forming a view of the whole. Medium+ acidity makes your mouth water noticeably but doesn't sting; tannin is a drying grip, not a taste.
4. Conclusions
How good is it, is it ready to drink, and why. Add a blind guess at grape, region and vintage if you want to sharpen your palate over time.
Common traps
Words to trade in
Nice
Name what you liked: ripe fruit, fresh acidity, a long finish.
Smooth
Say whether you mean low tannin, low acidity, or soft, ripe fruit.
Full-bodied
Check it is weight you are describing, not just a strong flavour.
Complex
List the three things you found — that is the complexity.
Questions
Quick answers
How many descriptors should a tasting note have?
Two or three accurate ones. A note is useful when it lets you recognise the wine again, not when it is long.
What if I cannot smell anything specific?
Start with a yes or no question — is this fresh or cooked, red fruit or black, is there anything sweet-smelling like vanilla? Narrowing beats guessing.
Do I need the official WSET vocabulary?
No. The families above follow the same logic in everyday words. Use the term you would use at a dinner table.