Two sections carry the structural read of a wine: Profile Levels, a set of sliders for how much of each element the wine shows, and Profile Characteristics, a vocabulary for the manner in which it shows them. Together they answer the questions aromas can't: not what the wine smells of, but how it's built.
Profile Levels
Ten sliders, in two groups. The Essentials are the six every taster reaches for:
Slider | Runs from → to |
Acidity | Low → High |
Alcohol | Minimal → Hot |
Body | Light → Full (through Medium-Light, Medium, Medium-Full) |
Fruit | Savory → Fruit-Forward |
Sweetness | Bone Dry → Very Sweet (seven steps, Off-Dry and Semi-Sweet among them) |
Tannin | Low → High |
The Advanced group holds the evaluative set: Complexity, Finish (Short → Long), Oak, and — in Standard and Advanced notes — Viscosity (Thin → Thick).
Every slider starts unset and stays that way until you move it: an untouched slider says nothing, and each has a clear control to return it to silence. That matters — a wine you didn't assess for oak should read as unassessed, not as "low oak."
Profile Characteristics
Where the sliders measure, the characteristics describe. Six groups — Acidity, Alcohol, Body, Fruit, Style, and Tannin — offer a working vocabulary of about 135 terms, each with a short definition: an acidity can be racy or steely, a tannin silky or grippy, a style elegant, rustic, or transparent. Select as many as apply; a "Search Characteristics…" quick find drops a term into the right group without hunting for it.
The two sections are complementary by design. A slider says the tannin is high; a characteristic says whether that tannin is velvety or gritty. Notes that use both are the ones that still read clearly years later.
Detail Levels
Both sections appear at every detail level — Quick included. The only gated field is the Viscosity slider, which joins at Standard. If the Advanced slider group feels like more than the evening calls for, leave it untouched; the coverage indicator will simply show what you chose not to assess. See Choosing a Detail Level.
Where This Fits
Both sections live on the Profile Levels & Characteristics card, with Quick Selections for the Essentials and the full set in the Editor Panel — see How the Tasting Note Builder Works. The wine's own page shows a style-level version of the same dimensions for comparison — see Wine Pages — which makes a pleasant exercise of any tasting: read the wine blind on your own sliders, then see how the style usually presents.