Some of the key things you learn, quickly or over time, are that: You must depend on your own taste. There will be people whose judgement agrees with yours, but you will still disagree with them in surprising ways. After tasting but before revealing we would often discuss our rankings of the various wines, and I cannot tell you how many times someone has said to me "YOU liked THAT?!" or vice versa.
It's hard to make absolute ratings, and much easier to make relative rankings. Tastes vary. YOUR taste varies. Context is important. A wine you loved in a romantic restaurant may not do so well at a table compared with its peers. It's a way of developing a wine vocabulary. Now before you start rolling your eyes, I'm not talking about florid prose to impress non-wine drinkers. I'm talking about a vocabulary for describing to yourself what a wine was like in a way that you will be able to remember later what it was you liked or didn't like about a wine. A personal vocabulary. This way when you look back at your tasting notes they'll actually be useful. It will completely demystify wine and make you much more comfortable talking about wine. You'll be confident in your own impressions, and you'll gain an almost magical ability to actually talk to sommeliers if you so choose. You see, you'll be able to describe what you like, what you don't like, and ask what the sommelier has in your price range that you'll enjoy and that will go with your food. Sommeliers LOVE people who love wine, and can talk about their taste in wine and CARE about wine. You'll also be able to tell better when someone is trying to push some overpriced crap on you and feel assured when you say you want something else. You will actually learn a better appreciation for wine. Not snobbery - though you can turn it that way if you want - but from experience to understand how wines differ, what constitutes a defect in a wine and how to recognise it, what the differences are between varieties, styles, and vintages, and what qualities you like. So, for example, I am not a fan of big fruit driven fully extracted red wines. Sadly that style is very popular now, and it can be hard to find a red that's lighter, spare, more acidic, with less fruit. But I know that's what I like, and I know how to tell if there's a wine of that style available or not. Anyway wine reviews are bullshit and wine ratings are bullshit, but wine tasting is a skill worth learning. However you won't learn it by opening up a half dozen bottles of random mixed reds and whites and putting them on your sideboard with some cheese and fruit and calling it a "wine tasting." For the record, I've found through my own tasting experiences that besides cavas I'm also generally fond of spanish reds especially from Ribera del Duero, pinot noirs from Central Otago (New Zealand) and some from northern Tasmania, and some sparkling wines from Tasmania (I'm a particular fan of the Clover Hill 2006 if you can find it.) Your milage will vary. -- Charles
