Complete Record Keeping With A Wine Tasting Journal

If you’ve ever been to a wine tasting, found a wine you love then couldn’t remember the name of it once you set out to buy another bottle, what you need is a wine tasting journal to help you remember. While there are many facts about wine that you can jot down in your wine journal, I tend to use it for remembrances of wines I liked. Together with a wine label remover to save the labels of these wines, you will have a complete wine portfolio at your disposal.

So what kind of information goes into wine journals? They are meant to keep wine tasting notes on different aspects of various wines you’ve tried. More or less it’s used as an evaluation tool. Just like using wine notes, a journal can be used the same way, but you can select which wines to keep as future records. You can track aromas, flavors, colors of the wine, what varietal or blend was used, what vintage, you can save labels, note producer and keep track of every other aspect of wine tasting that you normally would use with score cards or tasting note cards.

I use the wine tasting notes template I created and keep records in my leather wine journal that has binders so I can add pages as necessary. I just use a hole punch for the notes and insert them into my journal whenever I find something I like. You can use a label remover to put over the wine label and after a few minutes just pull it off. It’s just a large piece of clear adhesive that fits over the entire label and pulls the surface of the label off, keeping the image intact. This is a perfect accompaniment to notes as you can find it easier when you go buy more.

What I like about this kind of wine label journal / notes combo is that I can easily reference wines I want by flipping through and finding the label right away. You can separate it by varietals or by region. I tend to categorize by varietal. Probably because I’m always pairing wine with food and can more easily pick out a wine I want this way. If you really want to get technical, you can further divide your personalized wine journal into sub categories to break varietals down to region; i.e. California Cabernets, Chilean Cabernet, etc.

You don’t have to be an oenophile to use a wine diary, so to speak. Actually, I think it’s a great tool for beginners as it will ultimately help you learn about wine better. I have about twenty wine journals around my home and although I only use my current leather edition, they have all helped me learn wine faster and gain a more complete picture of wine as a whole.

What kind of wine tasting journal should you get?

Well, there are a hundred billion different texts out there. Your wine tasting notebook could be like mine where you can add pages over time, or you can select one that is has bound pages. It’s all in what you prefer and one is not better than the other. My other notebooks are all bound. But as I’ve gathered more and more wines that I like over time, I’ve found a binder style suits me better.

Take a look at these and see if any appeal to you.

Wine Label Removers

As I said, I like to keep the labels of the wines I’ve tasted. It helps me remember a wine better. I think it makes your notebook look better too, but aesthetics aren’t what matter. But if you want to keep the labels of the wines you taste, here are some wine label removers. Some journals come with label removers, so inspect the product before you buy it to see if it does. Other books don’t provide room for labels, so again, look before you leap. If you’re the tech savvy type and find a wine at a tasting event but you don’t have access to the label, use your cell phone to snap a photo and print it out later.

Online Wine Journals

Again for the tech savvy, you can find online journals to keep your records. I prefer a physical journal, but have used an online wine journal in the past. Cork’d is a great site for this because you can share your review with other like-minded wine folks. WineDiary.com is another site like Cork’d. Or you can start your very own wine blog and share your tasting info with your friends.

What it comes down to is your wine tasting journal is a personal item. Whatever platform you use to record your notes and track the wines you love is up to you. I just wanted to present some options that I have found valuable. Good luck.

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