For The Love Of Port

Any recommendations for wine tasting journals? My phone can only do so much and I prefer pen to paper anyways


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I prefer a normal journal type journal, somewhere in the 5" by 7" to 4" by 6" size range so it's small enough not to dominate a table or tasting bar but big enough to write in.


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Bradley Bogdan wrote:I prefer a normal journal type journal, somewhere in the 5" by 7" to 4" by 6" size range so it's small enough not to dominate a table or tasting bar but big enough to write in.


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Thank you. I found a notebook that matches your measurements for $6. Leather bound, too, with a ribbon bookmark. Here are the inputs that I'm thinking I'll focus on:

Name:
Vintage
Producer
Contents
ABV
Tasting Date
With Whom
Food served with

Appearance/Color
Nose
Taste
Finish
Other Remarks.

Anything you would add or omit?

Decant time
Price Paid
Where acquired or circumstances


...guess it depends on how much details matter.

I like the 5"x7" top-spiral notebooks. They work great, are easy to carry, store, and the perfect size (not to big or small).

I'll be the oddball and explain what I've done.

I have a Microsoft Word document in booklet form. I keep all my tasting notes in that document. I print it out and staple it together with several blank pages in the middle, to which I add new notes. I type those into the Word document and print out a new version once or twice a year. In the U.S., a piece of letter size paper makes a booklet 8.5" x 5.5". A4 paper folded in half would give 21 cm x 14.85 cm. These are close enough to the dimensions mentioned in previous posts.

I don't write about who was there and what food was served, or price paid for bottles. I have pricing information elsewhere, and while noting people would be nice, hopefully I can remember most of that. Food? That would just be too much information. I record the name and vintage of the wine, and my tasting notes and the date tasted. I'll record a bottling year if it is relevant for the style, e.g. for Colheita Port where there can be different bottlings of the same vintage. Other details like ABV and varietals are generally omitted. Again, this is information I can look up on CellarTracker.com, which I also use. What I want to focus on is my tasting impressions, the unique information. As it stands, my TN booklet is now 76 pages. It used to have a bunch of other notes in it like pricing and company ownership notes, but I split that out because the booklet was getting too big to staple. At some point in the future I may need to split my notes up for the same reason, or seek an alternative binding.

I like the electronic form for organization. In the Word document I have sections for countries, and then subsections for sub-styles or regions, and then things are sorted by year. This makes it easy for me to find notes when I want. It does make it more difficult to find what was tasted on a specific occasion. But for a printed document, I want finding the wine to be the first priority. Let's say I'm tasting a wine blind. "Hmmm, tastes like a Colheita from the 1970s. Let me check my notes. Yes, I think this is 1978 Kopke based on the note I wrote on 21 March 2010." I can also do a text search of the electronic version if I really need it. I regularly put the electronic form on my phone.

I like the paper format for a simple reason. It will never crash, be "lost in cyberspace", the computer program will never be obsolete or incompatible, I can easily take it with me, and it will integrate with any pen or pencil I apply to it.

Eric Menchen wrote:I'll be the oddball and explain what I've done.

I have a Microsoft Word document in booklet form. I keep all my tasting notes in that document. I print it out and staple it together with several blank pages in the middle, to which I add new notes. I type those into the Word document and print out a new version once or twice a year. In the U.S., a piece of letter size paper makes a booklet 8.5" x 5.5". A4 paper folded in half would give 21 cm x 14.85 cm. These are close enough to the dimensions mentioned in previous posts.

I don't write about who was there and what food was served, or price paid for bottles. I have pricing information elsewhere, and while noting people would be nice, hopefully I can remember most of that. Food? That would just be too much information. I record the name and vintage of the wine, and my tasting notes and the date tasted. I'll record a bottling year if it is relevant for the style, e.g. for Colheita Port where there can be different bottlings of the same vintage. Other details like ABV and varietals are generally omitted. Again, this is information I can look up on CellarTracker.com, which I also use. What I want to focus on is my tasting impressions, the unique information. As it stands, my TN booklet is now 76 pages. It used to have a bunch of other notes in it like pricing and company ownership notes, but I split that out because the booklet was getting too big to staple. At some point in the future I may need to split my notes up for the same reason, or seek an alternative binding.

I like the electronic form for organization. In the Word document I have sections for countries, and then subsections for sub-styles or regions, and then things are sorted by year. This makes it easy for me to find notes when I want. It does make it more difficult to find what was tasted on a specific occasion. But for a printed document, I want finding the wine to be the first priority. Let's say I'm tasting a wine blind. "Hmmm, tastes like a Colheita from the 1970s. Let me check my notes. Yes, I think this is 1978 Kopke based on the note I wrote on 21 March 2010." I can also do a text search of the electronic version if I really need it. I regularly put the electronic form on my phone.

I should go more digital. I work for the EPA after all! However, I see a huge advantage being the search feature.

Andy Velebil wrote:I like the paper format for a simple reason. It will never crash, be "lost in cyberspace", the computer program will never be obsolete or incompatible, I can easily take it with me, and it will integrate with any pen or pencil I apply to it.

I use a paper notebook - I'm about to start on my 3rd - but I try to also input the notes into the TNDB here. The notebook is my primary, but it's really nice to have the search features (and access to other people's notes!) that you get from the TNDB.

how are your journals organised?

i just got a nice notebook i want to transcribe my TNs into. right now they're in a top spiral bound steno pad that also has notes from dance workshops, rough drafts of letters, and various other topics in it. my TNs are written in chronological order of when i tasted each Port. would you recommend sectioning my Port journal by style? if i do that, i'm worried about how to allot sections. does anyone have suggestions?

I use excel so I can sort/search etc quickly.....and a keep a back up as well as the cloud. I can't imagine with hundreds of Ports tasted a paper journal! how would you find anything?

Eric Menchen wrote:I have a Microsoft Word document in booklet form. I keep all my tasting notes in that document. I print it out and staple it together with several blank pages in the middle, to which I add new notes. ... At some point in the future I may need to split my notes up for the same reason, or seek an alternative binding.

My book has gotten too big to print and staple, so now I get it printed and bound. https://www.thebookpatch.com/
I had a few copies printed last fall before going to Portugal. I'll probably print out a new edition after this weekend's tastings.

Scheiny, see above for how I've organized it.

i certainly like the digital copies, and have a lot i need to type up here. but i remembered seeing people mention going through their [physical] notebooks, i've always really liked notebooks and journals though never had much use for them, so i thought it would be nice to have physical copies in a nice journal. maybe i'll keep it chronological but look into 'bullet journaling' and take my time writing them in that way.

I like my paper journal, wine stains and all!

Eric Ifune wrote:I like my paper journal, wine stains and all!

"Wine" is one of my favorite colors.
how is yours organised?

Just by date.