See
Notice color, clarity, depth, and how the wine moves in the glass.
The library
Tools for curiosity.
Vintage chart
Place, year by year.
World vintage ratings on the 100-point scale, 1980 to 2024. Filter by country, jump by decade, hover any cell for the detail.
Ratings describe the overall quality of a vintage in a region — not any single wine. A weak year still produces excellent bottles from careful growers, and a great year does not rescue a bad one. Use it to frame a conversation, not to settle one.
Scroll the table sideways for more regions
95–100 exceptional · 90–94 outstanding · 85–89 very good · 80–84 good · 75–79 average · 70–74 fair · below 70 poor · “–” not rated or vintage not declared.
Compiled from the Robert Parker Wine Advocate Vintage Chart and the Wine Enthusiast Vintage Chart, 2026 edition.
Aroma wheel
Start broad. Then get specific.
Fruit
Citrus, orchard, stone, tropical, red, and black fruit.
Floral
Blossom, rose, violet, lavender, and dried flowers.
Herbal
Fresh herbs, tea, grass, leaf, and savory tones.
Mineral
Stone, chalk, saline, graphite, and earthy impressions.
Spice
Sweet spice, pepper, licorice, cedar, and toast.
Earth
Forest floor, mushroom, tobacco, leather, and game.
Circular flavour vocabularies came out of the brewing and Scotch industries. Ann Noble, a sensory chemist at UC Davis, published the first Wine Aroma Wheel in 1984, and it has shaped how the trade talks about wine ever since. The principle is simple: start broad, then narrow. “Fruit” is easier to agree on than “cassis”, and once you and the guest agree on the family, the specific note follows.
The wheel above is ours — six families, twenty-three groups, seventy-seven descriptors, drawn as vector so it stays sharp however far you zoom. Open it full size on a phone at the table, or print it for a pre-shift.
Our own vocabulary, not a reproduction. Dr Noble’s original Wine Aroma Wheel is a copyrighted work and can be bought from winearomawheel.com — worth owning if you train staff on it.
How to taste wine01 02 03 04 05
A simple five-part practice.
WSET — the Wine & Spirit Education Trust — teaches tasting through what it calls the Systematic Approach to Tasting: you look at the same things in the same order every time, so notes stay comparable from wine to wine and from one person to the next.
Appearance first — clarity, intensity, colour. Then the nose: whether the wine is clean, how intense it is, what the aromas actually are, and how developed they seem. Then the palate — sweetness, acidity, tannin, alcohol, body, flavour intensity, and the length of the finish. Conclusions come last, not first.
The discipline matters more than the vocabulary. Working in a fixed order stops you reaching a verdict off the first sniff, and it separates what you are actually sensing from what you already assume about the label. For our work there is one more step worth adding at the end: what the wine is for. A tasting note that doesn’t finish with “this belongs by the glass” or “this is the bottle for the steak table” hasn’t done its job — which is why our sheet ends there.
Smell
Begin with broad aroma families before searching for individual notes.
Taste
Consider sweetness, acidity, tannin, alcohol, body, and flavor.
Feel
Pay attention to texture, balance, energy, and the shape of the wine.
Finish
Notice what remains, how long it lasts, and whether it invites another sip.
A blank sheet built for selling rather than for exams: structured tasting, ending in where the wine fits on a list and what you’d say at the table. The full Level 3 Systematic Approach to Tasting is published by WSET and is worth reading if you want the complete framework.
Regional expression
Climate becomes character.
Cool coastal
Longer growing seasons often preserve acidity and favor lifted aromatics, fine structure, and detail.
Mountain & hillside
Elevation, exposure, and stressed soils can build concentration, structure, and a strong sense of site.
Warm inland
Greater heat can drive ripeness, body, generosity, and darker fruit expression.
Volcanic soils
Often associated with structure, savory tones, and a distinct mineral impression.
Marine influence
Fog, wind, and cool nights can slow ripening and protect freshness.
Old-world context
Tradition, regulation, varieties, and food culture shape regional identity alongside climate and soil.
Video library
Confidence, one bottle at a time.
Open a still-wine bottle
Larry O’Brien, M.S., demonstrates proper use of the waiter’s knife—from foil and worm placement to leverage and a clean finish.
Open sparkling wine safely
Nick Hetzel, M.S., demonstrates how to present, open, and serve sparkling wine safely—with control, confidence, and a gentle finish.
Waitstaff Wine Service
Craig Ellick demonstrates how to present a bottle with the label visible, confirm the producer and vintage, open it neatly, and complete service with confidence and care.
Trade pathwaysFor buyers For representatives
Resources built around the work.
Build a list with a point of view.
Florida menu pairings, by-the-glass ideas, banquet tiers, and focused category stories for restaurants, hotels, clubs, and retailers.
Explore buyer resourcesEverything the account needs.
A password-gated library for sell sheets, shelf talkers, training cards, tasting mats, presentation decks, and account tools.
Enter rep resourcesQuick reference
Temperature and air.
Two things change how a wine shows more than almost anything else on the list: how cold it is when it reaches the table, and how long it has had to open up.
Most restaurants serve whites too cold and reds too warm. A red at true room temperature in Florida is a red served at 75°F, which reads as flabby and hot. These are the working ranges.
Serving temperature
- Sparkling40–45°F · 4–7°C
- Light whites & rosé45–50°F · 7–10°C
- Full-bodied whites50–55°F · 10–13°C
- Light reds55–60°F · 13–16°C
- Medium & full reds60–65°F · 16–18°C
When to decant
- Young, tannic reds30–60 minutes
- Older fine wines15–30 min, pour gently
- Most whites & rosésRarely needed
- SparklingNever decant