Unlock the Secrets of Blind Wine Tasting with Beyond Flavour: The Essential Guide

Bjorgvin Askelsson: It is rare that i write a review but this book deserves it. I have been running a wineclub for 20+ years and we do a lot of blindtasting. I was never content with me performance, so i bought this book. I did go through some months where i had i wine lager of wines from all over the world and used Corawin to create a tasting - letting my wife mix up the glassed, then i used this book to try to find the wines from the tanning profile. Today i am not as good as the author, but i am much better at blind tasting. The tannin profile method is not the way to find the wine, but it sets you in the right direction, it makes a foundation. I highly recommend this book - but i think it will not do much without some similar training as i created for myself.

United States on Nov 19, 2021

Not best pleased: Good content, or at least as advertised.

But the production quality of the book and binding is appallingly poor.

It's one of those publish yourself, have a third party internet provider produce the book and post it.

Outer bindings curl out immediately. Internal pages distinctly non-premium. All very cheap.

United Kingdom on Jul 04, 2021

Sweet Baby Blue: This could have been a great book if Jackson had followed through on his own concepts and actually presented the systematic approach that is stated on the back cover, which claims to be "an indispensable guide to blind tasting". It is unclear who has written this endorsement. Even though it is mostly a kind of hodge-podge of his understanding of various wines, I'm giving it 2 stars because his observations are sometimes insightful. In general though because Jackson abandons his own 'systemic approach' very early on, he leaves the reader woefully disappointed.

Canada on Apr 15, 2021

Lonchafinista: El autor plasma aquí su método personal para catas ciegas. No es ningún refrito de los libros clásicos que ya conocemos. Me parece muy original y acertado, aunque un poco escaso en cuanto a que faltan algunas variedades españolas, por eso le doy 4/5.

Spain on Mar 14, 2021

Eonrunner: This is a fascinating approach to blind tasting but one I do not personally relate to - at least not yet.

Synesthesia is the crossing of certain senses (maybe a music note "sounds" like a color to someone or an aroma "feels" like number...). To me, this is Jackson's meticulous work in addressing his own synesthesia as it relates to structure in wine. It works fabulously for him and has opened the door to many others to perceive structure in another way. For further insight into his background and this book check out GuildSomm's podcast "Blind Tasting & Poetry" released on 1/22/2020.

As mentioned, I find this intellectually intriguing - which is to say, I don't (yet) connect with his ability and method but I benefited from the meditation and space Jackson creates for thinking about structure beyond the linear "low" to "high" metrics.

United States on Jan 27, 2021

99aph: This is a pocket-sized book and a lot of the theories in it are rather weird concepts

United Kingdom on Nov 22, 2020

Douglas S.: First off, I highly respect Nick for having passed the MW on his first attempt, and I don't doubt that these techniques helped him to do so. I think these ideas are worth considering for those of us who take blind tasting seriously and are always trying to learn more and refine our skills. That said, I also think a lot of these ideas about structure are so personal to the way Nick perceives them that they do not translate directly to the general experiences of most other people. I'm not saying this in a vacuum; I have talked to several other avid students of wine who have read his book and listened to some of his talks, and we generally agree on that point.

The reason I'm down to 2 stars here is that there are a lot of errors in basic tasting theory in the book. I didn't take notes, but a couple of glaring examples off the top of my head are that Alsatian Pinot Gris can be up to 14% ABV (so many examples from classic and even iconic producers are well above that) and Riesling always has high acidity (usually, sure, but many Austrian Smaragds, high end Alsatians, and some others are clearly not above Medium Plus). There were many of these errors, many objectively false...

United States on Nov 13, 2020

jacopo: One of the best book ever !

Really helpful book about wine blind tasting.

Australia on Mar 24, 2020

Chrisa T.S.: Have you ever found yourself at a country where they don’t speak your language, you don’t speak their language, but then you hear the familiar sound of your mother tongue across the crowd, when you least expect it, and you feel at home again?
That is how I felt when I read the book: Beyond Flavour by Nick Jackson. A book that attempts to create a trustworthy structure around blind wine tasting, very successfully I think.

I always thought of wine, especially when I blind taste, as shapes, often 3D, and with a sense of movement or direction. (I think of music, paintings or poems like that too)
I thought I was weird and I kept my observations to myself, trying to find words that could be more generally accepted and understood by others.

But then this book came along and gave me the permission slip to talk about wine based on structure and not only flavor. Plus it offers a map to blind tasting like nothing presented before in the wine literature.
Thank you Nick Jackson for this!

United States on Feb 12, 2020