Plus 1
Palates are subjective, and TNs are only useful to me if they contain enough information for me to sift through and get an actual feel for the personality of the wine. I haven’t seen a good tasting note that could be deconstructed into pieces and still be as useful as a complete note.
Some good ideas here. I’ve thought a lot about what I put in my notes, maybe will make a few changes.
I still struggle with who the note is for. Is my note for future me? Or for the public? I’m now at about 70/30. 70% is for future me (my memory stinks). A record of what I drank, liked/didn’t like, why, and readiness, really helps me think about what to get more of and when to open bottles. The 30% is based on my awareness that contribution to the community is worthwhile. I find others’ notes really helpful, so I want to do my small part. But I’m not a professional wine writer and likely will never be one.
If someone uses CT to track the who and the where that doesn’t bother me. That note isn’t for the rest of us, but sheesh, let people use the tool the way they want.
Points 
Comparisons with other wines in the range, however described. Whether two vintages of the same wine, or different cuvees from the same producer in the same year, seeing how they compare with each other helps me a lot with the wine being written about.
That is what the private notes feature is for.
Whether to drink or hold is very subjective I’ve found. I should be able to glean something from your note about how open the wine seemed to you anyway. I find those sorts of clues much more useful than a pronouncement of ‘drink’ or ‘hold’. It’s those clues I often find useful if I’m trying to figure out if my bottle is in a window or not.
Having many notes is most useful. The overall snapshot I can pull from many notes can really help. It helps soften the noise of single notes that can be outliers.
I’m also looking for the overall shape of the wine in terms of expression. Is it a big wine with “gobs” of fruit or something that is lean and acidic. And everything in between. Is it mostly fruit flavors or is it a lot of secondary and savory notes. Those can be clues about whether I’m interested in trying the wine or not.
David’s notes about comparisons are useful also.
Plus 2
I wish there was more of this (in professional notes as well but there you have potential conflicting interests). On CT, I want to see more “This wine reminded me of the 89 so-and-so when it was young”. Or, “stylistically most similar to Chateau X”. Or, "In a lineup of [region, grape variety], this was the most [character trait]. My mind attempts to build a framework of tasting memories, so for me, referencing other wines in the matrix helps me to understand what the taster might be experiencing, particularly if I’ve never tasted the wine in question before.
While “elegant” is almost always a positive descriptor, it means different things to different folks. I have seen it used to describe burgundy, bedrock field blends, and Saxum syrah. I find “complexity” more useful, which admittedly doesn’t mean the same thing, but if you’re getting layers of fruit, savory herb, spice, mineral, etc etc that’s a wine I’m interested in.
Likewise “would I buy it again?” is totally subject to disposable income and personal taste. If I wrote the note that’s helpful for my own use, otherwise not so much.
The name is key, but for a name to be useful, it needs to be associated with a tasting history including the types of information that Sarah and others have mentioned for calibration.
Comparisons with similar wines (even including QPR commentary) can be helpful, since they increase the chance of correlating a note to personal experience.
That is virtually an outline for my TN format. 
(so, in other words, I agree with you. 
)
That’s a good check list and pretty spot on for the thing I enjoy reading. The terroir of the experience maybe. One word is not enough to really give me context unless I know I’m in tune with the author.
I try and round as many bases as I can, try and make it human. That said, I also try and not let it turn in to a writing exam that overrides the experience.
That must be why I generally find your notes helpful.
“Tasted with Sally.”
That basically sums up my opinion and what I try to provide in my notes. I want details not subjective musings about whether it’s ready to drink or the QPR in your opinion, although adding those thoughts doesn’t detract from the note.
I agree with this. I often read notes that are full of references to fruits or other flavors (some of which I’ve never even heard of), and by the end I have absolutely no idea what the writer actually thought of the wine.
That said, I mostly find tasting notes meaningless unless I understand the writer’s palate - if I do, that will be a useful date point for me (is the wine open? How is it showing?). Otherwise, it’s mostly irrelevant. I always come back to this example, but when I see Jeff Leve write a note about how opulent and amazing a wine is, I immediately back away. Jeff is a lovely guy, and I find his website very useful, but we have extremely different palates.
My tasting notes are very idiosyncratic, but that’s because I mostly write them for myself and am often not as scientific as I maybe should be (also because I become less scientific about wine the more of it I drink ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
). However, I tend to be clear when I don’t like a wine. If my notes aren’t helpful to people, I am absolutely fine with that. They don’t need to be.
Yeah, this. I’ve definitely read comments about wines that I’ve buried in my cellar and how they’re “not getting any better”. Then I have them a few years later and they’re either tannic monsters or closed.
I think for the subset of wines for which that is an important question, that is very helpful information. How is this 2006 Barolo doing, is it getting into a decent drinking window, how much aeration does it need. I find that very useful in CT and WB notes.
But for most wines, that really isn’t a question, or much of a question. So it depends on the wine.
I think the biggest thing for me is how good was the wine, how much did you like it, was it worth the money. I realize that is highly subjective (though so is the “drink / hold” opinion), but that’s the biggest thing to communicate in a tasting note.
I also like comments that suggest the style of the wine. If it’s a chardonnay, I like to know whether it is presenting as rich and buttery, or lean and acidic, how much oak is noticeable, etc.
As I find yours, to me, as well.
I will be ruggedly honest here—I post most of my TNs for my own reference, so that I can go back to them—not only for my own thoughts, but often (if at an OL or dinner party e.g.) for what others were thinking that night/day. As with some of the others above, a note will mean more to me if I’ve somehow calibrated the person’s palate and tastes with mine (and that can be an opposite view as well). It gives things a reference point. But I do generally get most “excited” reading someone else’s note if they say they were wowed by a wine or enjoyed it.
Kwa Heri
Mike
We’ll have to agree to disagree. There aren’t any fixed rules or requirements for how to use private notes vs. public tasting notes. I am 100% ok with people using the tool the way they want. It’s very easy to skip unhelpful public notes.
Sure, I do use the private note feature for this kind of information. I also use it for short notes that I don’t think are “worthy” of the public but I’m not incredibly consistent. I’ve found some very detailed private notes in my database.
I am pretty happy about this discussion though - I find it helpful and it may even inspire me to take better notes.
How awesome would it be in CT if one could see all of one’s friends/folks your fans of at the top of the list of notes. I am going to go request that feature!