GPAT
The Group Pours Approach to Tasting.
GPAT is the structured tasting framework Group Pours uses for every flight, across wine, beer, and spirits. It walks the same arc as the classic systematic tasting approaches — appearance, nose, palate, conclusions — but with friendlier wording, rewritten scales, and original prompts you won't find in any certification syllabus.
Each category gets its own sheet. Wine uses the classic GPAT axes; beer uses a BJCP-derived shape (appearance, malt/hops/ fermentation, mouthfeel); spirits use a WSET-derived shape (appearance, nose, palate, finish). The structure differs, the philosophy doesn't: capture what's in the glass with vocabulary everyone in the room can use.
What's in a wine GPAT sheet
- Verdict — good or faulty. Above everything else.
- Appearance — clarity, intensity, and a colour picker calibrated to actual wine cores and rims (purple, ruby, garnet, tawny, brown for reds; straw → amber for whites).
- Nose — condition, intensity, ready-to-drink, and a multi-select aroma cloud (sage badges = aroma) you can also tag for the palate.
- Palate — sweetness, acidity, tannin, alcohol, body, flavour intensity, finish; same aroma/flavour cloud (wine badges = flavour) so the connection between nose and palate is explicit.
- Sparkling axes — bead fineness, bead persistence, mousse, cordon — only when the wine is bubbly.
- Conclusions — balance.
- Guesses (in blind mode) — varietal, country, region, vintage, price tier. Scored by your host.
Beer + spirits sheets
Beer follows a BJCP-derived shape: appearance (colour, clarity, head), aroma (malt / hops / fermentation), flavor (with mouthfeel axes — body, carbonation, warmth), finish, and a fault set covering oxidation, diacetyl, DMS, infection, skunking. The aroma + flavour cloud is shared so the malt and hop characters carry through from nose to palate.
Spirits follow a WSET-derived shape: appearance (colour, viscosity), nose (intensity, primary aromas, heat), palate (entry, body, flavour characters, texture, heat), and finish (length, character). Same BLIC conclusions as wine.
Why a new framework
The classic certification frameworks are precise but assume you've spent a year learning their vocabulary. GPAT keeps the rigor — same axes, same diagnostic value — but rewrites the prompts in everyday English so a first-time taster and a Master of Wine can fill the same sheet and compare notes.
It's also designed for groups. Every taster's sheet rolls up into an aggregate the host reveals one wine at a time — so the room shares its impressions instead of tasting in isolation.