Beyond "Delicious": Say What You Taste with POURPIN's 25 Hint Words

You drink a wine, call it "delicious" — and later, you cannot say what it tasted like. Has that happened to you?

"I remember liking it, but not what it tasted like"
"When staff ask what I like, all I can say is 'something delicious'"
"Looking back at my records, I can't tell which bottle I actually loved"

You are not failing to taste anything. You just have too few words at hand. POURPIN offers Hint words — tap-to-select flavor impressions — and there are only 25 of them, all in Japanese. Because there are only 25, you never get lost choosing. This article covers the full list and a three-word method for each bottle.

That feeling of being unable to put it into words is also the theme of POURPIN's YouTube Short 言葉にできない夜に、ラベルをかざす.

Why you stop at "delicious"

"Delicious" is a verdict, not a description. A verdict leaves nothing to compare later. If two bottles are both recorded as "delicious," nothing in the record says how they differed. Which one was smooth, and which one was powerful? To keep the difference, you need words for taste.

You do not need technical jargon either. You need a small set of words for picking "which one is this closest to." POURPIN's Hints are that set: 25 words. Being limited to 25 is the point — choosing stays quick.

First, the full list of 25 words

The 25 Hint words fall into three groups. You do not need to memorize them all. Start by knowing that there are three groups.

Group	Words	The words (Japanese, as shown in the app)
Aroma	10	チェリー (cherry), ブラックベリー (blackberry), プラム (plum), タバコ (tobacco), バニラ (vanilla), オーク (oak), スパイス (spice), レザー (leather), シダー (cedar), スミレ (violet)
Taste	9	フルーティー (fruity), タンニン (tannin), なめらか (smooth), 力強い (powerful), 土っぽい (earthy), スパイシー (spicy), ベルベット (velvet), フルボディ (full-bodied), ミディアムボディ (medium-bodied)
Finish	6	長い (long), 中程度 (medium), 短い (short), ドライ (dry), 温かい (warm), 余韻長い (long finish)

Each group has a different job. Aroma is "what did it smell like," taste is "how did it feel in the mouth," and finish is "what stayed after you swallowed." Together, the three make one bottle three-dimensional.

The three-step method: one aroma word, one taste word, one finish word

When you log a bottle, pick just three words, in this order.

Step	Pick	How to choose
1. Aroma	1 word	Hold the glass close and take the first thing that comes to mind. Cherry? Vanilla? Just that
2. Taste	1 word	Take a sip and notice the mouthfeel. Smooth? Powerful? Fruity?
3. Finish	1 word	Notice what stays after swallowing. Long? Short? Dry?

Limiting yourself to three words is for the sake of looking back later. A record with ten words tells you nothing about which word was decisive. Three words give a bottle a clear outline at a glance. If you are unsure, two words — aroma and taste — are fine. One word beats zero.

Rewrites for "delicious," by situation

Using only the real Hint words from the table above, "delicious" can be rewritten like this.

What you wanted to say	Rewrite
It was just delicious	Cherry aroma, smooth taste, long finish
It was a solid, serious red	Blackberry aroma, powerful taste, warm finish
It was light and easy to drink	Fruity taste, medium-bodied, short finish
It was showy and memorable	Violet aroma, velvet taste, long finish
The tannin stood out	Tannin, full-bodied, dry finish

These rewrites work at a wine shop too. Saying "I like them smooth, with a cherry feel" lets staff narrow the shelf for you. The shop-asking method itself is covered in another article.

→ Every Question You Hesitate to Ask at a Wine Shop — You Can Ask Them All, Budget Included

Three common mistakes: more words make a record less usable

Mistake	What happens	Do this instead
Trying to use all 25 words	No word is decisive, and you cannot read the record back later	At most 3 words per bottle: one from each group
Stars only, words later	Several 5-star bottles pile up with no differences between them	Add at least one aroma word at the same time as the stars
Adding hard technical terms	The note stops being your own words and you stop reusing it	Keep anything outside the 25 words as a single short line in the free memo

The third point matters most. There is no need to force a feeling into the 25 words. Records have a free-text memo field. Use Hints as "the shared words for comparing" and the memo as "your own note" — that split is what lasts.

Grow it through your records: your "favorite" becomes visible in words

The effect of words is hard to see from one bottle. Once you have 5 or 10 records, look back at their Hints. If "smooth" and "cherry" keep appearing in your 4-star-and-up records, that is the shape of your current "favorite."

Step	Do this
1. Line up 4 stars and up	Filter to only the records you rated highly
2. Count the Hints	List the three words that appear most
3. Use them for the next bottle	Use those frequent words as the taste you tell a shop

The same review helps when you take stock of a whole year of records. That year-end method is covered in another article.

→ A Year of Nights, Counted in Bottles — A Year-End Wine Inventory to See How Your Taste Changed

FAQ: using Hints

Q1. Where do I pick Hint words?
In the tasting-note section of a Drank record, alongside the 1–5 stars. That section appears when a record's status is Drank.

Q2. Can I add Hints to a Want to Try record?
Flavor words belong to records of wines you have drunk. For a Want to Try record, first save the name and country, then switch its status to Drank after tasting it and add stars and Hints.

Q3. What about a word that is not in the 25?
Records have a free-text memo field. Keep such impressions as a single short memo line. Hints are for comparing; the memo is your own note.

Q4. Do I have to memorize all 25 words first?
No. Start with three everyday ones — cherry, smooth, fruity — and your own frequent words will settle naturally as your records grow.

Summary

"Delicious" is a verdict, not a description of taste
POURPIN's Hints are just 25 Japanese words: 10 aroma, 9 taste, 6 finish
Per bottle, pick three: one aroma word, one taste word, one finish word
Kept with stars, they make your "favorite" visible in words later

Today's one action

Open your most recent Drank record and re-assign just three Hint words to it. One aroma word, one taste word, one finish word. That alone turns it from "a bottle I liked" into "a bottle whose taste I can describe."

Log up to 30 bottles free with POURPIN

With POURPIN, a signed-in account can log up to 30 bottles free (guest use, without signing in, is 3 bottles). Start from a label photo, and for wines you drank, add stars and Hints. Premium (¥300/month or ¥3,000/year) raises the cap to 1,000 bottles and adds detailed search and Export (CSV/JSON). Start with the free 30 bottles, and grow your own tasting vocabulary.