> I go by what they write. If they say 'tasting', I always refer to the
> professional tasters' method: sip, swill, spit.

Words have multple meanings. It is likely that another meaning is the
one intended, in many of these cases.

> I find
> little use for terms other than 'elegant' or 'well-structured' or
> 'raisiny' or 'fruity' or 'watery'. I don't know what 'forward' means,
> for instance...

Well, "elegant" doesn't help me decide whether this wine will go well
with beef tips, or with pesto. To me, "forward" means that the flavors
start out strong. "Assertive" to me would mean something similar. I do
agree that there are far more words to pick from than are useful to
ordinary wine drinkers like you and me, and that the differences between
them are less than the differences in the usage of the same word from
average person to average person (or even from day to day). However,
words that describe the nose or the palate sensations of the wine, in an
objective ("tastes like...") rather than subjective ("tastes good")
sense are very useful. Alas, I'm not very good at it, which works to my
detriment when I go to my own collection to pick out a bottle to go with
what I'm eating.

How about "dark"? What is a "dark" wine? I can't tell you, but I can
certainly tell you (on tasting) which wines strike me as "dark" (in
flavor) and I can tell when I want a "dark" wine to go with my food. So
that term is useful to me.

There was a wine I tried (I hesitate to say "tasted") in a Healdsburg
which jumped out at me and screamed "Pizza!". Well, it didn't really
taste like pizza (I =can= tell the difference between the two) but that
was the most accurate term I could find for that wine's flavors. So, in
that sense I can see why people would notice "cedar notes". "Earthy" is
another good term for me; it is similar to "dark" but different in a way
I can't describe. It may not be meaningful to you. But that's ok.
"Elegant" is not meaningful to me, but it says something to you.

And I have no idea what "Volitile acidity" means. I guess it's the "VA"
in "VA palatte".

> I drink lots of wine, and have been trying lots of bottlings of Nero
> d'Avola lately. They all taste quite different. No two seem to be even
> remotely similar. Could I describe the differences? No. Could I
> identify different bottlings blind? Of course, if kept to 4-5 bottles.

Could you remember the differences a year or two from now, when you go
to choose one from your cellar? Identifying bottles blind is a nice
trick, but the payoff is when you open the bottle you chose, and it
turns out to be the match you were looking for. Being able to do that
requires paying some attention to nose and palate while drinking wine.

Many of us call that "tasting", even if it's not in the style of the pros.

Jose
--
The monkey turns the crank and thinks he's making the music.
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