The Art of the Tasting Note

J

Jeff Grossman

Jeff Grossman
Maybe it is a dead art, after all.

I stumbled across this one, for Ch. Montus, over at CT:

Holy crap!! This is like the entire universe has been condensed into one infinitesimal point of dark matter and put into a bottle and mixed with essence of crushed rocks. Black - and I don't mean slightly dark - I mean black. Absolutely huge nose of granite and all-enveloping darkness. Massive wall of fruit of such density and power - words can hardly describe how utterly and totally huge this is. Is it pleasant? I guess it is in the same way as some folk like take pleasure from being dressed up as gimps and locked in a box. Not port-like in its bigness, there is no flab or sweetness - it is more dense and mineral and structured and smothering in its totalitarian control of your tongue. I can admire the wine making here, but really this wine has such primary and brute presence that it probably has a half-life of 350 millions years. Drink between the years 2308 and 4503.
 
there are far worse examples to be found on cellar tracker. i can even see where this person is coming from if it's a young Montus.

but even the worst examples do not prove the death of the tasting note any more than thousands of cups of Starbucks prove the death of good coffee.
 
Artful, perhaps not, but heck, that note tells me more about that wine than most of the fruit-, flower-, and babble-filled notes some people get paid to write.
 
it reads like an sfjoe description of a fatboy "open for business" bandol.

r slicker
 
My problem with the note is that I can't imagine a Montus deserving that much hyperbole, but I think it was more descriptive than a lot of the laundry list notes I see. Of course, I've been known to write tasting notes that are as purple as a young CRB côt, and I still fondly remember Stuart Yaniger's description of the '93 Overnoy poulsard, so I may not be the best judge of an artful tasting note.
 
originally posted by Mike Evans:
My problem with the note is that I can't imagine a Montus deserving that much hyperbole, but I think it was more descriptive than a lot of the laundry list notes I see. Of course, I've been known to write tasting notes that are as purple as a young CRB côt, and I still fondly remember Stuart Yaniger's description of the '93 Overnoy poulsard, so I may not be the best judge of an artful tasting note.
Click to expand...
A classic.
Best, Jim
 
originally posted by Florida Jim:
originally posted by Mike Evans:
My problem with the note is that I can't imagine a Montus deserving that much hyperbole, but I think it was more descriptive than a lot of the laundry list notes I see. Of course, I've been known to write tasting notes that are as purple as a young CRB côt, and I still fondly remember Stuart Yaniger's description of the '93 Overnoy poulsard, so I may not be the best judge of an artful tasting note.
Click to expand...
A classic.
Best, Jim
Click to expand...
No wonder Overnoy used to be affordable.
 
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