Grape tasting is crucial to determine the harvest date. Traditionally, berry tasting is done on the plot, by randomly selecting several berries along several rows. This practice has many advantages because it permits an overview of the health of the plot and heterogeneity within the plot.
In certain situations, another tasting method can also be useful. A tasting in an appropriate indoor setting can improve a judge's impartiality, for several reasons:
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A judge's tasting ability and opinion of the grapes they are tasting can be altered when the tasting is done on the plot. When the identity of the plot is well known to the winegrower, and the tasting date coincides with the harvest period in previous years, this can distort the taster's perception of the ripeness of the sample being tasted. This is also the case when a visual evaluation of the conditions (sanitary among others) on the plot (diseases, good health, vigour) is taken into account along with the tasting. For maximum impartiality, it makes sense to first take samples from the plot and then number them and taste them on an anonymous basis.
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Anonymous tasting in the tasting room can be very useful for blending several plots in the same vat by harmonizing maturity profiles rather than historical blocks. It also makes it possible to taste samples that may be far apart geographically in a very short time.
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Tasting temperatures can be controlled: hot temperatures greatly distort the perception of the sugar/acid balance. This can lead to a tendency to evaluate grapes as being riper than they really are.