Every free tasting note starts at one of three detail levels — Quick, Standard, or Advanced — chosen when you create the note. The level sets how many fields and aroma choices the builder offers. It never changes what you're required to fill in, because nothing is.
The Three Levels
Level | Built for | In short |
Quick | A pour, a splash, a glass at dinner | The essentials, in a couple of minutes. |
Standard | A bottle you're paying attention to | The characteristics most tasters want to record. |
Advanced | Study, evaluation, professional work | The complete assessment — every field the builder has. |
All three share the same builder — the same cards, Quick Selections, Editor Panel, and coverage indicators. A higher level simply presents more of it.
What Each Level Adds
Every level records the heart of a note: when and where you tasted and with whom, the occasion, the bottle size and amount poured, purchase details, color and clarity and legs, the core structure sliders (acidity, alcohol, body, fruit, sweetness, tannin, complexity, finish, and oak), the character selections, aromas and flavors, food pairings, scores and value, personal and public notes, tags, and photos.
Standard adds the serving picture and a first layer of rigor: stemware, serving temperature, aeration and decanting, your focus level, sediment, a viscosity slider, and the drink window — plus a deeper aroma and flavor library.
Advanced adds the fields a careful evaluation leans on: how precisely the amount was measured, how the temperature was taken, the tasting-condition set (inebriation level, an optional blood-alcohol estimate, and ambient or personal factors that color perception), rim variation, and staining — plus the deepest aroma and flavor library.
The aroma and flavor library itself scales with level: roughly 150 selections at Quick, 400 at Standard, and 525 at Advanced. See Aromas & Flavors.
Picking a Level
Choose by the tasting, not by your expertise. A sommelier pouring through a busy service has every reason to leave Quick notes; an enthusiast sitting down with one deliberate bottle is well served by Standard or Advanced. Levels are chosen per note, so most tasting libraries end up a mix — and each note keeps the level it was started at.
How These Docs Mark Level Differences
Pages in this section describe the builder at full depth. Where a section or field doesn't apply at every level, a note directly under its heading says so:
Detail levels — Appears in Standard and Advanced notes.
No note means it applies at every level. The gates come from the builder's own field matrix, and this page's "what each level adds" summary is the compact version of it.
Blind Tasting Formats Are Not Detail Levels
The WSET and CMS formats in Curate for Sommeliers are separate, exam-aligned builders — structured to each exam's framework, not as a fourth detail level of the free builder. See About Curate for Sommeliers.