Written at a working-professional register; fault vocabulary is not glossed.
When something in the glass is wrong — not unusual, wrong — the Flaws + Defects editor records it with the same structure the rest of the note enjoys: which fault, and how severe. A fault named precisely is worth far more, later, than a note that just says the bottle was off.
How It Works
The editor presents fourteen defects in four families. Each is an independent judgment: mark a defect present, then set its intensity on a five-step scale — Subtle · Faint · Moderate · Strong · Impotable. A clean wine needs nothing here; the entire section is skipped when no fault is detected. Each defect carries a tooltip with its characteristic presentation and likely cause — cork taint's damp basement and wet cardboard, traceable to TCA at parts-per-trillion thresholds, and so on through the list.
The Fourteen
Family | Defects |
Oxidation | Premature Oxidation · Volatile Acidity (VA) · Acetaldehyde · Ethyl Acetate |
Environmental | Cork Taint (TCA) · Heat Damage (Cooked / Maderized) · Lightstrike (UV Damage) · Ladybird (Pyrazine) Taint |
Sulfur Compounds | Sulfur Compounds · Mercaptans |
Microbiological | Brettanomyces · Butyric Acid · Lactic Acid Bacteria · Refermentation |
Fault, or Style?
Several of the fourteen live on a boundary, and the editor's guidance says so rather than pretending otherwise. A low level of volatile acidity can lift a wine's complexity; Brettanomyces is courted deliberately in some fuller reds; a light frizzante prickle is intentional in styles from Grüner Veltliner to Vinho Verde. The intensity scale is how the note holds that nuance — Brettanomyces, Subtle in a Rhône blend is an observation; Strong is a verdict. Record what's in the glass and let the intensity carry your judgment.
Where It Lives
The Flaws + Defects editor opens from the builder's Tools menu and from its place among the note's sections, and it's available in every note — everyday and blind-format alike. The visual symptoms that often prompt it are recorded next door in Color & Appearance; the section's coverage stays quiet unless a fault is marked, and a flawed note wears a distinct indicator in the builder so the finding isn't missed.