Designation (also oak wine, reference wine) for a wine in a wine evaluation, by means of which the level is determined, at which the evaluation of all other wines to be tasted is oriented. This is to avoid that evaluations are too far apart, which can happen even with experienced tasters. A level wine is served at the beginning of a professional tasting. The tasters jointly agree on a certain number of points as a benchmark or guideline for the evaluation of the following wines. The level wine is therefore a help for the tasters to keep their own tasting level and not to fluctuate too much. For this reason, it is often served several times during a tasting session in order to be able to detect any deviations in the evaluation. A reference wine has a completely different objective.
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Roman Horvath MW
Domäne Wachau (Wachau)