Certified Tasting Checklist
Certified Tasting Checklist
Section titled “Certified Tasting Checklist”
At the Certified level, the deductive tasting exam is not asking you to be a magician who names the château. It is asking you to hold a structured method together while a clock runs and your nerves argue with you. Candidates rarely fail because their palate is broken; they fail because they abandon the grid the moment a wine surprises them. This checklist is about proving your process is stable under mild pressure.
What the Certified tasting exam is checking
Section titled “What the Certified tasting exam is checking”You will assess wines blind and describe them systematically, working from observation toward a reasoned conclusion within a set time. The examiners care less about the exact right answer than about whether your descriptors are accurate and whether your conclusion actually follows from the evidence you called. A wrong grape supported by honest, correct structural analysis is worth more than a lucky guess floating on vague notes.
Can your method survive the clock?
Section titled “Can your method survive the clock?”Run a real blind flight and check each of these before you reveal the bottle.
- Did you describe sight (clarity, color, intensity) before smelling anything?
- Did you separate fruit, non-fruit, and any oak or age markers on the nose instead of blurting one impression?
- Did you commit to concrete structure calls: acid level, tannin level and quality, alcohol, body, and finish length?
- Did you name grape and origin as a conclusion drawn from that evidence, not an opening guess?
- Did you finish inside the time limit without skipping the back half of the grid?
- Did you avoid deciding the grape first and then bending your descriptors to fit it?
If your conclusion arrived before your evidence, that is the habit to break, regardless of whether you happened to be right.
Where Certified tasters lose points
Section titled “Where Certified tasters lose points”| Trap | What it looks like | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Reverse reasoning | Guessing “Sauvignon Blanc,” then hunting for support | State structure first, let it point you |
| Vague descriptors | “Nice fruit, good acid” | Commit to level and specific character |
| Grid collapse under time | Rushing sight and nose to reach a call | Pace the whole grid, every wine |
| Chasing the exact wine | Fixating on producer or vintage | Bank the accurate structural calls that score |
A tasting drill worth repeating
Section titled “A tasting drill worth repeating”Pour two to six wines blind, ideally with a partner who hides the bottles. Talk through the full grid aloud for each, commit to grape and origin, then reveal. Now do the part most people skip: write one specific correction per wine. Not “taste more Riesling,” but “I called medium acid on a wine that was clearly high; my mouth was still watering ten seconds later.” Track those corrections across sessions and you will watch the same errors stop repeating.
Blind tasting rewards volume and honest feedback more than any single insight, so keep the sessions frequent and the reveals ruthless. Confirm the current Certified tasting format and timing on the official Court pages before exam day.