Replace Parker, Robinson, Suckling and many more with #7wordwinereview

If you are a regular on Twitter you might have spotted some of the six word movie reviews that have been trending.  My personal favourite “Bridesmaids – sets feminism back 200 years.”  We wondered how we could harness the power of Twitter and start a trend of our own.  Shamelessly jumping on the bandwagon, we’ve come up with the very original #7wordwinereview, and we invite you to get involved in this exciting new development…

All you have to do is sum up the wine you are drinking in 7 words, and tweet it with the hashtag #7wordwinereview.  I’ve done one for the wine I am enjoying at the moment: 

#Ciconia #7wordwinereview “Spice, berries, damsons, oak, soft tannins, good.”

And here’s one from last night:

#AloeTreeShiraz #7wordwinereview “Oddly buttery, rich, balanced, modern, luscious fruit”

Of course you can also apply this to wines that you really didn’t rate:

#EchoFalls #7wordwinereview “Keep away from naked flames/pregnant women”

We genuinely believe this could be the future of wine tasting – it dispenses with the need for the lengthy tasting note.  Imagine how much easier it would have been to read Parker’s Bordeaux if all his tasting notes had a seven word limit?  I’ve selected one at random from one of my old books in order to illustrate this point.  Here’s Clive Coates on Chateau Beychevelle 1986, sampled in 1998:

“Full colour.  Still youthful.  Slightly burly and herbaceous.  Fullish.  Very tannic.  Quite astringent on the palate.  A bit lumpy.  Plenty of wine here but it lacks grace and charm.  A little stewed.”

And here’s what he might have said, under our new seven word limit:

“Burly.  Lumpy.  Astringent.  Bumbling.  Stewed.  Drink up.”

While there was nothing wrong with Coates’ original tasting note, I feel that ours has a bit more punch.  The lack of politeness  lends it a sense of urgency – If I had a cellar full of ’86 Beychevelle, I think I would start frantically opening bottles.  There is no room for pandering to the winemaker or for sparing the feelings of the person whose bottle you are drinking – and as the 7 word wine review can be tweeted anywhere at any time, there is no time to reflect on a wine, you just have to say it like it is.

Now it is not that we want to replace tasters – as you will know from our blog, we love Jancis and Parker and the rest and we greatly respect their work.  But the 7 word wine review is a peer to peer phenomenon – we’ve dispensed with the need to look to our critics for their opinions, but rather we can look to our favourite social media tool to see what other ordinary folks like us are drinking and how they rate their wines.  This is wine tasting for the digital era, for the generation who has no time for endless tasting notes for wines that they barely remember by the time they come to decipher their incomprehensible handwriting from the blurry tasting the day before.  This is snappy, savvy and immediate wine tasting.  So what are you waiting for?  Let’s hear your #7wordwinereview – get tasting and tweeting!