Every tasting happens somewhere, with someone, under some set of conditions — and all of it shapes what you taste. The Tasting Context and Tasting Environment sections record that frame: the when and where, the bottle and its service, and, at higher detail levels, the state you tasted in.
Both live on the Tasting Details card, alongside Rating, and open fully in the Editor Panel. As everywhere in Curate, every field is optional — see How the Tasting Note Builder Works.
When
The date, the time, and — behind a globe icon beside the time — a timezone, useful when a note is written about a tasting in another part of the world. Dates run from 1900 to today; the time field accepts 12- or 24-hour entry.
Where
Two fields describe the place, and they work together:
Location type — a rich list spanning everyday settings (residence, restaurant, bar or lounge, tasting room), wine-specific venues (winery hospitality or production areas, vineyard grounds, private cellars, wine caves), shops (wine shop, grocery, food hall), gathering spaces, cultural venues, professional settings, and travel — hotels, lounges, even in-transit by flight, ferry, road, or train.
Location name — for venue-type locations, search for the venue by name and Curate attaches the match; for a residence or other private setting, a plain description does the job.
An optional geotag records your coordinates with the note; enabling it also fixes the date and time to the present moment, since a geotag only makes sense for a tasting happening now.
Who and Why
Tasting partners are entered as chips, with autocomplete drawn from the people you have recorded before. The occasion takes one or more types — Cooking / Food Pairing, Date Night, Happy Hour, and Dinner Party are among the common picks, with the full list ranging from anniversaries through study groups to trade tastings — plus an optional occasion name once a type is chosen ("Marta’s 40th," "Tuesday study group").
The Bottle and the Pour
Available at every level: the bottle size (from split through the full run of large formats) and the amount poured, in milliliters or fluid ounces. Purchase details are also universal — whether the wine came as a glass, carafe, bottle, or flight, at what price, in which currency.
Service
Detail levels — Appears in Standard and Advanced notes.
The serving picture: stemware (type-appropriate shapes, or name your own glass), serving temperature, aeration (the device, if one was used), and decanting — whether you decanted, the vessel shape, and the duration, up to six hours.
Measurement Precision
Detail levels — Appears in Advanced notes.
Two companion fields record how the numbers were obtained: amount accuracy (measured, estimated, or stated by someone else) and temperature source (measured by container, probe, or infrared, estimated, or stated). Each activates only when its parent field holds a value.
Assessment — the State You Tasted In
A careful note acknowledges the taster as well as the wine. The Assessment fields record your own condition:
Focus level — from casual to critical attention. Appears in Standard and Advanced notes.
Inebriation level — sober through inebriated, with an optional blood-alcohol estimate if you prefer to enter a figure. Appears in Advanced notes.
Surroundings — external stimuli (a distracting ambient odor, perfume nearby, smoke, unusually dim or bright light, extremes of humidity or temperature) and internal ones (nasal congestion, seasonal allergies, a burnt tongue, successive tasting without a palate cleanser, and similar conditions that color perception). Appears in Advanced notes.
None of this is confession; it is calibration. A note that says the room smelled of scented candles and you were fighting a cold is worth more, later, than one that silently pretended otherwise.
Filling It Quickly
Most of these fields have Quick Selection popovers on the Tasting Details card, and the builder’s Tools menu offers Fill from Previous Note for the context you tend to repeat — the same table, the same partners, the same occasion. See How the Tasting Note Builder Works for both mechanics, and Choosing a Detail Level for how the levels divide these fields.