How to Navigate a Tasting Event at a Winery?

Answer 1

Novice wine connoisseurs, without proper instruction, may find themselves slightly uncomfortable at a wine tasting. Each winery may have a different format depending upon the formality of the event. Some wineries allow guests to roam through the winery casually while partaking of the fruit of the vine. Others may have guest seated in a formal type setting where wines are dispensed and discussed similar to a seminar. Guests considering a wine tasting must decide which style is most comfortable for them.

Most novice wine tasters are nervous about appropriate etiquette at a wine tasting. Wine tasting events have adopted a few practices that may seem foreign to those who are not familiar. Wine tasting events often involve practices such as, spitting, sniffing, and gurgling. Most of these practices we would generally only perform in the privacy of our own homes for personal hygiene practices. Certainly, they do not seem like appropriate behavior for polite company. However, over time experts have recommended these practices to experience the full body flavor of the wines.

Spitting was adopted for several reasons. Experts realized they were unable to properly evaluate the eighth or ninth wine, if they swallowed each tasting. Furthermore, experts found that it was unnecessary to swallow in order to determine the subtle flavors of the wine. Therefore, spitting in an individual plastic cup or a spittoon was adopted in order to facilitate the evaluations. Additionally, spitting enabled individuals to drive from the wine tastings without risk of a DUI violation. Safety and proper evaluation are the two main reasons spitting was adopted.

Gurgling is also a practice that may be considered rude in polite company. However, this practice allows the wine taster to breath in the air to unlock the full ingredients of the wine. With practice, wine tasters learn to gurgle inconspicuously to avoid attracting attention during the wine tasting process.

Another unfamiliar practice is sniffing. Wine tasters often sniff the wine in order to detect the aroma or flavors present. During a wine tasting it is considered impolite to interrupt another’s evaluation process with comments, opinions, smoking, and strongly scented perfumes. Each of these would interrupt a fellow wine tasters process and is considered in the wine community to be quite rude.

Knowing the proper etiquette will allow the novice wine connoisseur to navigate the winery with little or no embarrassment. Even with these tips, the novice may feel slightly out of place when visiting a winery for the first time.