Blind Tasting Framework 2.0 – Your Essential Wine Notes & Study Companion

Hi everyone! Our updated blind tasting frameworks are live!

If you’re not already familiar with them, these are your visual note-taking system for practicing blind tasting and learning wine varieties.

They’re a critical framework designed to help you organize and consolidate variety-specific notes so you can perform more confidently in blind tasting exams.

You get the essential baseline information for each grape, along with the flexibility to expand and personalize what’s provided, ultimately building your own refined and highly usable blind tasting library.

This version is the advanced-level framework, which builds on the beginner version and is intended for those who are seriously preparing for blind tasting exams.

It’s especially well suited for students studying for CMS Certified, WSET Level 3, and the WSET Diploma.

To give you a clear sense of how it works, let’s walk through an example using one of the most common international white varieties: Chardonnay.

Imagine you’ve just tasted Chardonnay (on its own, in a side-by-side comparison, or in a blind tasting) and you want one place to consolidate everything you’ve noticed.

This framework is where all of that information comes together.

One section is fixed reference material: the grape information box.

This includes the climate best suited to the variety, whether it buds early, mid, or late in the season, and when it ripens; background context you can apply directly to what you’re tasting.

The top section focuses on sight.

Here, you’ll note the wine’s color and the typical range you expect to see in the glass.

Chardonnay spans a range, so the color scales are already provided.

The same goes for intensity or concentration: how transparent or opaque the wine appears.

If you notice consistent patterns as you taste, you can mark where the wine typically falls and add any extra visual observations in the notes section.

There’s also a small area to record aromatic intensity, so you can track how expressive the variety tends to be.

Next are the aroma and flavor descriptor sections, organized into clear categories.

These capture what you’re smelling and tasting.

For each variety, the major benchmark fruit and non-fruit notes are listed, along with their broader categories.

This helps you see what shows up most consistently for you.

If, for example, a certain fruit category appears regularly but manifests as a different specific fruit on your palate, you can record that here.

Notes are organized into primary fruit, non-fruit characteristics, winemaking influences such as oak or malolactic fermentation, and tertiary (aged) notes.

Turning the page, you’ll find the structure section, with scales for body, acidity, alcohol, sweetness, and phenolic bitterness.

These ranges are aligned with exam expectations, but your personal perception may differ, so you can extend the scales or mark where these traits typically land for you.

This allows the framework to stay standardized while still reflecting your own palate.

You’ll also see a section for comparable varieties (common confusions in blind tasting).

These are grapes that can resemble Chardonnay and may be mistaken for it.

The framework lists key examples and highlights why each differs from Chardonnay, with space for you to add others you personally struggle with.

Below that is an open area for any additional notes you want to track about the variety.

The regional sections follow.

Chardonnay from France tastes different from Chardonnay from California, and this is where you capture those distinctions.

Major regions and subregions are listed so you can record tasting-specific notes as you explore them.

A benchmark producer section is included as well, with examples provided to help you anchor your understanding.

The framework covers both classic Old World regions and a wide range of New World regions, encouraging side-by-side tastings to compare how Chardonnay expresses itself across countries and climates.

At the back of the guide, you’ll find additional blank note pages you can print and insert if you want to go deeper on a variety.

These allow you to add color references, extended notes, or anything else that supports your learning.

Every white and red variety in the guide follows the same consistent format, so after any tasting, you know exactly where to go to record and review your notes.

The goal is simple: instead of scattered notes buried in notebooks, you have a structured, evolving personal variety library you can return to again and again, refining it as your palate develops and your tasting confidence grows!