Wine Tasting Scorecard

A wine tasting scorecard is a great way to focus your attention of each wine you taste and to help put into words (and numbers) your impressions. There are several different types of wine rating systems. There are star systems that give wines one, two or three stars (as I use in the Poor Man's Guide to Fine Wine free newsletter). There is a 20-point wine scoring system. But the most famous and ubiquitous scoring paradigm by far is the 100-point scale. Popularized by wine critic Robert Parker, this scale seems very familiar to even beginners because it is like a test in school. If the wine performs flawlessly, it gets 100 points. If it "fails" it gets a much lower number. I think it is this familiarity and accessibility that makes this scale so popular and widely used.

Wine Tasting Note Sheet with Scoring Template
Here you can download and print a wine tasting scorecard to help you express your thoughts on a wine. It is a downloadable PDF file. The wine tasting forms have both room to write notes as well as to score the wine.

The 100-point scoring system is simple to understand, but difficult to master. Every wine gets 50 points automatically. The lowest score a wine can get, even if it is dreadfully flawed, is 50 points. An utter failure of a wine. On top of this, you add points for each of 4 categories. The first is up to 5 points for color and appearance. Does the wine have a pleasant color, is it clear and pretty or murky and unappealing? The next gives up to 15 points for the nose, the wines aroma. After taking a sip, you assign up to 20 points for the mouth, including the flavors, texture, body and so on. Finally, at the end you can add up to 10 points more for the finish and the overall impression, the gestalt if you will. Does the wine leave a pleasing finish in your mouth after you swallow it, enticing you to take another sip? How is the balance and the overall impact of the wine, does it have personality and class or did it leave you short? Once you've assigned all these points, add them together and add 50 points to come up to your total score, which you can enter at the bottom of the wine tasting scorecard. Generally, 90 points and above mean the wine is outstanding, with the most exceptional, mindblowing wines in the upper part of that range. Wines that are 80-89 are still good wines though, just not as profound. Generally those below 80 are considered either very mediocre or even flawed and do not generally deserve much attention. A 70-some score by Robert Parker is practically a death sentence in the marketplace for most wines!

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SBI!