by Jeff Miller of Artisan Family of Wines (Seven Artisans, Sly Dog Cellars, Red Côte Rosé)
Let’s continue with looking at my wine scorecard:
| Circle L (low), M (medium), or H (high) for each | |||
| Bad | OK | Good | |
| Visual | |||
| Color intensity | L | M | H |
| Clarity, lack of haziness | L | M | H |
| Viscosity | L or M | H | |
| Nose (fruit) | |||
| Vegetal/herbal (bell pepper, green olive) | H | M | L |
| Bright fruit (strawberry, blueberry, light cherry) | L | M | H |
| Dark fruit (cherry cough drop, cassis, blackberry) | L | M | H |
| overripe (prune, raisin) | H | M | L |
| Nose (oak) | |||
| medium toast oak (cedar, bourbon, spices, vanilla) | L or H | M | |
| high toast oak (char, smoky, bacon) | L or H | M | |
| Palate | |||
| Bright fruit | L | M | H |
| Dark fruit | L | M | H |
| Fullness- front | L | M | H |
| fullness - mid | L | M | H |
| fullness - rear | L | M | H |
| length of finish | L | M | H |
| overall complexity | L | M | H |
| General | |||
| acidity level | L | M or H | |
| tannins - soft/round | L | M | H |
| harsh green or drying tannins | H | M | L |
| balance | L | M | H |
| varietal character | L | M | H |
| Flaws | |||
| ethyl acetate (nail polish remover) | H | M | L |
| brett (band-aid, barnyard) | H | M | L |
| Sulfide compounds (rotten egg, garlic, onion, rubber, canned corn) | H | M | L |
| Oxidation | H | M | L |
| Score on a scale of 1-10 (1 bottom 10%; 5 average; 10 top 10% | |||
| Write in here any other aspect of note: |
Looking at the oak section, I’ve divided this category in to two, medium and high toast. This category, in theory, could have been broken down even further, but two categories seemed good enough. In each case, I assigned a low or high rating to the Bad column, and a medium rating to the Good column. This reflects my feelings about what a good amount of oak is (moderate), as well as my preference that there be a balance between medium and high toast. Again, you may disagree with my taste preferences, but you should have a decent idea how much of the two toast levels of oak the wine has.
I don’t pretend that everyone would, or should, agree with me on my preferences. For example, I like acidity, so High acidity falls in my Good column. But many people prefer much softer wines, which are lower in acid. For them, a High for acidity may belong in the Bad column. But most of us will be able to agree that a wine is High is acidity, even if we can’t agree on whether that’s a good thing. Ditto with oak, where whether the wine has a High, Medium, or Low level of either medium or high toast oak is a fairly objective standard which should garnish general agreement, even if we disagree whether a M in medium oak level is a good thing (as I believe it to be).
So the columns really reflect my personal approach to winemaking, with the rows being the objective side of things. I should also point out that I make generally bigger style red wines, something that is reflected in my Good, OK, Bad assessments—my scorecard would look a little different if I were making Pinot Noir (where I would find high color intensity a negative, not a positive).
I think someone else who wanted to use this scorecard may well adjust whether something is Good, Ok, or Bad to conform to their personal likes and dislikes, but the basic description of whether the wine has a lot of oak, or a moderate amount, or very little, is something that describes the wine in a fairly objective way.
I also include a section to cover flaws, since a wine otherwise perfect in every respect may be totally objectionable if it has a significant flaw. A wine that reeks of nail polish remover probably isn’t a very good wine, no matter how else it rates.
Finally, I’ve included a score section. This is my entirely subjective rating of the wine, similar to the Wine Spectator approach. I think that, for me, how the wine did on the preceding parts of the scorecard should give a pretty good idea of my overall preference for the wine (though probably not for someone else’s). But not always. Sometimes the wine, for some obscure reason, will garner an overall score that seems out of step with where it seems it should fall on my preference scale. Which means, I guess, that no matter how hard you try, you can’t totally pigeon-hole wine.
Occasionally, I use this scorecard when making wine. It allows me to see if the wine is doing a good job on the various criteria, and, most importantly, where it’s not, so that I can try to fix whatever is wrong.
Admittedly, this scorecard lacks the simplicity of others, which just assign an overall score. But most scores are as meaningless as they are simple. A scorecard, such as mine, would allow someone else to have a pretty good idea of how a wine tastes. That, at least in my view, is what a scorecard should do.
