Mark Lipton wrote:
> As for your earlier questions, "high toned" refers to the nearly-sharp
> smells I was getting, not quite volatile acidity to me, but still
> produces that feeling in the corner of the jaw. You can detect all the
> BS that you want, but I calls 'em like I smells 'em.
>
Mark,
Quibble alert! I'd say high-toned indeed refers to VA, just not in the
(subjective, I know) amounts that lead to a negative reaction. Light
amounts of noticable VA provide "lift" to the fruit - I find this in
trational Rioja (Lopez y Heredia being the best example), old style
Barolo/Barbaresco, etc.

As to forward, it's ....well.....the opposite of backward. A wine that
is more ready and accessible than one might expect is forward, a wine
that is less accessible (but showing potential) is backward. The same
can apply to vintages ('96 Piedmont is a bit backward, '97 is quite
forward; '86 Bdx is backward, '99 is forward).

I usually ignore the Scarpetti scat, but find the definition of tasting
as "spitting like the pros" pretty funny. My tasting groups include
quite a few pros- retailers, wholesalers, importers, magazine editors,
and newsletter writers. I've not noticed any of the pros spitting more
than the rest of us, nor any defining our activities (drinking a bunch
of wines with dinner) as not tasting or eschewing the use of the term
tasting notes for their impressions. Most of us spit/dump the wines we
like the least, and consume the ones we like best. Where the line is
drawn depends mostly on whether driving is involved. Big trade
tastings of course are different- usually held in the afternoon, with
hundreds of wines, I typically taste 40 and spit 35.