99% of the wines I write notes for are purchased by us, with the remainder being gifts or wines tasted during a winery visit. Pam and I don't own stock in any wineries, nor am I involved in the retail trade anymore and I sure don't get any money for posting up my tasting notes here. You don't have to worry about some hidden agenda behind my rants and raves. When the wine was tasted at a winery, I'll make a comment about that in my note.
Most of the time, you won't find my tasting notes breaking down the minute aromas and flavors in a wine. Since I'm still developing and educating my palate, I sometimes have trouble describing things past my basic three categories: acidity, fruit and tannins.
Numerical ratings and scores are fine for folks who are interested in getting that in-depth when they evaluate a wine. Me? I'm more interested in the bottom line of whether or not the wine is good. While many wine raters use the 100 or 20 point scales, my wife and I often use a more quirky rating system: smiley faces. Most of the time I don't actually include these ratings in my tasting notes, but it's always how we think of the wines.
:-( (frowning face) = Poor wine, but not terrible. Definitely won't buy again.
:-| (straight face) = Fair wine, but probably won't spend our money on again. Life’s too short for mediocre wine!
:-) (smiley face) = Hey, this stuff is nice! We'd buy this one again!
:-9 (slurping smiley face) = Sell the china and put the cats to work. We’re buying as much of this as possible. Great juice, in case I wasn’t clear.
Lacking a better system, for the moment I'll organize these notes by county first, then color of wine (red, white, rosé). I'll subdivide each country into regions as appropriate.
At the moment, I'm catching up with entering in some older tasting notes. I'll continue to add new notes as I taste wines. Right now, I've got tasting notes for wines from the following countries and special events: