Wine ranking sheet
Make the sheets View: A4 · Letter
The Ranking sheet is the shortest page a taster can fill in: the wines as numbered rings across the page, a rank box under each, and the rule printed above, 1 = best, each rank once. Across the foot runs one question, Why your first is first, with room for a sentence or two. There are no points and no scales, which is the point: tasters only have to decide an order. Your results sheet then has a row per wine and a column per taster for the ranks, with Rank sum and First places at the right, so the winner is a matter of adding. A tasting list goes with it for presenting the wines, and a glass mat if you want the glasses on numbered rings. It works for a short evening, a large line-up, or any table that argues about scales, from four tasters to forty.
Present the wines one by one, or pour them all at once and let people move freely between the glasses, which suits ranking well. Ask everyone to commit to an order before anything is said, then collect the sheets or read the ranks aloud and write them on the results sheet. A rank sum makes the evening's verdict visible at once, and the most divisive wine is the one with ranks from first to last. Print one Ranking sheet per taster, the results sheet for yourself, the tasting list and the mats. Six to eight wines rank comfortably, and up to twelve fit on a page. Because the wines are compared side by side, small pours are enough: a taste of each, a spittoon nearby, and water to reset between rounds.
Questions
Is ranking wines better than scoring them?
For a mixed group it often is. People disagree about what a 15 out of 20 means but rarely about which of two glasses they prefer, so an order gives a clearer result in less time.
How do you add up rankings from several tasters?
Add each wine's ranks across the tasters. The lowest rank sum wins, since 1 is best, and counting first places settles a tie.
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