Surviving the Large Wine Tasting

[Brad Ballinger]

Last night, my wife and I attended a large wine tasting. It was for a charity ww both believe in, and the tickets were a gift to us. It was in a large area, with tables of wine along the perimeter, each staffed by a different distributor. Minneapolis/St. Paul has 32 wholesaler/distributors (some also import), and 24 of them were represented. In the center of the room were the silent auction items -- some wine-related, some not.

Walking in, we were each given a glass and a number of pages stapled together that listed the distributors and the wines they were pouring. I quickly learned why it had been years since I've attended one of these things.

1. I hate trying to get a taste of wine from one of the tables. There is always a crowd at a table, and you have to wait for an opening. And it's no guarantee that someone won't cut in front of you. And I always get stuck behind the person who won't stop talking to the pourer. And there's usually someone next to me with too much perfume or cologne.

2. The wines never do much for me. Lots of chardonnay, lots of merlot, lots of pinot noir. I could count on one hand the number of French, Spanish, and German wines combined (at 24 tables!). Italy had decent representation (and surprisingly most was from outside of Tuscany).

3. Some of the reps who are pouring are tough to take. Generally, I'll find myself treated with indifference where the rep talks to his buddy while pouring me a taste or the rep assumes I know nothing about the wine and prceeds to tell me every detail (and the Parker rating, of course). I've rarely experienced the rep who will ask a good question, such as "Have you had the wine before?" or "What have you tasted tonight that you've liked?" Instead, it's either "talk at" or indifference.

Two quick stories. At one table, I aske for a pour of a primitivo. The rep emptied a bottle (mostly sediment) into my glass while chatting up his buddy. He continued to talk to his buddy while fumbling to open another bottle, and didn't even see that I had to rinse and wipe out my glass. No apology. Nothing. At another table, I aske for a pour of a carmenere. It was badly sulfuric on the nose, and I dumped without tasting. The rep appeared insulted, and asked "You didn't even taste it?" I tried to explain the sulfur problem, and I might has well have been speaking a different language.

It wasn't an entire lost couple of hours, though. I was the high bidder on a silent auction item -- a basket containing six sparklers: A Charles Ellner NV Rose, a Charles Ellner NV Carte d'Or, a Charles Ellner 1995, a Cremant de Limoux, a Cava, and a Prosecco Spumante. There were also six flutes and a gift certificate to a local bakery that makes wonderful desserts. I paid roughly half of the total value.

[KatieLoeb]

At least you won the auction basket. Sounds like a bad experience all around.

[Redwinger]

Curmudgeon!!

BTW, I agree those kinds of events are tough to take. But, as the lovely NJ says: "It's for a good cause so shut up".

Redwinger

[budrichard]

Haven't gone to one of those for many many years. The focus is on sales rather than good wine by mostly sales people rather than wine people. The only tastings we attend are low number focused tastings that we pay for to taste premium wines with the owners/vitners. Last one was with Christian Pol Roger tasting of all the Pol Roger wines. Along with tasting some great Champagne, Christian's lively history of his family and Champagne was alone worth the cost. Bubbly tasting coming up 12/15!

Another venue that we have been going to is focused dinner/tasting at upper end restaurants. You have to wade through the chaff to determiine the suitable ones where their is a focus on the wine with knowledgable representation and of course good food. Many restaurants that offer mediocre food have climbed on this bandwagon are now offering tastings of god knows what to go with thier food. Of course, everyone that goes to these speaks raptures about the food and wine. I am continually surprised by the wonderful reviews of these places. Of course the reviews are punctuated by incessant pictures. How can one enjoy an evening of good food, wine, conversation and companionship while constantly taking pictures?-Dick

[primowino]

The largest event I go to each year in the UK is the Oddbins Wine Fair. The £20 entry all goes to charity, there is no hard sell (no wine is on sale on the day) and the advantage of living in a non-wine producing country (if you ignore the mediocre overpriced English wine) is that wine from all over the world is reasonably represented.

[moosnsqrl]

You have my sympathy. I attended similar events for a while and finally had an epiphany "why am I doing this to myself?" and stopped. Even then it wasn't over, though. I attended a wine dinner at one of my favorite restaurants and their distributor was there -- I was horrified to discover that it was one of the most aggregious offenders, guilty of all of the things you mention in your posting and more. Oy. It as all I could do to keep from walking out of the dinner. I know sales people have to sell, but wine is such a more personal experience, I like to think of it outside of the realm of "just business."

[jackal10]

I'm lucky enough to attend large tastings quite frequently. These are professional tastings, with maybe 50 to 100 wines, professional rather than tutored. Long tables of pairs of bottles, white cloths, spittons, reverential silence. Personally I avoid the scrum type of selling and charity tastings, with people trying to load up as much "free" booze and salty nibbles as they can.

.

a) You have to spit. Drinking even 3 or 4 tasting portions distorts your judgement.

b) Your palate is AC not DC. This means your perceptions change depending what you have tasted just before. Take 2 glasses and fill one with a reference wine, preferably one you know to act as a calibration.

c) Clean your palate with a dry water biscuit from time to time. Avoid cheese, as the fat coats the palate. "Sell on cheese, but on an apple" is an old adage.

d) Be selective. My palate begins to go after about 30 wines, so I can't do justice to them all. Also I'm usually looking for some fairly specific needs for my cellar, so I don't need to taste everything. In wine, as in much else 90% is crap.

e) Having done the hard work choose a nice wine to sip and enjoy.

Edited December 9, 2005 by jackal10 (log)

[Adam Balic]

I enjoy wine tastings of all sizes and styles, but I prefer to pay up-front so there is no issue over buying wine out of guilt (must have lived in the UK for too long).

I ask a lot of questions and the people on the stalls are usually excellent, so I tend to learn a great deal which is the important bit for me. Occassionally, some sad-arse middle aged man will spend his time dishing out the wine to ladies who are obviously more attractive them me, but that's life.

When tasting 50+ wines it can be difficult to keep the palate going, but it does hone ones tastes. I detest many of the confection type wines wines from Australia that are sold in the UK (which is a problem as I am always trying to tell people that Australian wine can be great).

The only real problem I have is that the local events rarely have aged wine or vertical tastings. I can see little point in tasting some styles of wine at 2 years of age.

[smorris291]

Last night I attended a public Champagne tasting at a wine retailer in Chicago. In As seems customary according to the other feedback I've seen in this thread, the event had its highs and lows:

Low points:

-Waiting to try several wines while people blabbered incessantly (about things they obviously had little to no knowledge of).

-The clueless Veuve pourer who seemed surprise that everyone wanted to try La Grande Dame.

-The husband/wife couple who were clearly overserved and ended up loudly arguing about which Mumm--Cordon Rouge or Carte Classique--was better.

-My wife never made it, instead sitting in traffic for an hour due to yesterday's snowstorm.

Luckily, those lows were overwhelmed by the high points:

-The Perrier Jouet distributor that insisted on opening a fresh bottle of '96 Fleur de Champagne so I wasn't stuck with the end of the previous bottle.

-The snowstorm limited the crowd, so that overall it was easy to taste whatever you wanted.

-My first-ever taste of Krug. Wow!

-The guy pouring the '98 Dom, who was giving out VERY generous 1/2 glass pours...

Overall, despite the mis-steps and uneven pours/knowledge from the distributors, it was a very well-spent $35.

[Brad Ballinger]

Low points:

-The clueless Veuve pourer who seemed surprise that everyone wanted to try La Grande Dame.

High points:

-My first-ever taste of Krug.  Wow!

-The guy pouring the '98 Dom, who was giving out VERY generous 1/2 glass pours...

←

The La Grande Dame line cracked me up. That's probably the only VC wine I'd want to taste(unless they were also pouring the demi-sec. A taste of Krug is indeed an epiphany. And good for the guy pouring the Dom.

[smorris291]

Yes, the Krug was one of the primary reasons that I went to the tasting in the first place.

They were pouring the VC demi-sec, which I had not tried before. The selections that each importer had were quite inconsistent...you could try virtually the entire spectrum of VC and Moet selections, but for other labels like Taittinger and Pol Roger, all they had was the main NV.

Unfortunately, to try the VC you had to put up with the clueless pourer who couldn't even answer one guy's question about the difference between the yellow label and the demi-sec. It was painful to watch.

[Dinah Sarah]

I have worked these wine tastings - nothing glammy I'm talking schelp, schelp..

many attend so that they can drink (not taste) as much wine as possible for the price of entrance. By the middle of the evening "it ain't pretty" by the end - it's worse than ugly - these people get in their car and DRIVE.

IMHO they should have wine tastings with fewer and finer wines -

charge more per entrance and limit the number of pours per person - serve some appropriate food that fits the wine and give a discount to those who purchase that evening.

Does anyone know if the liability on the establishment to not have guests drive home is different for a wine tasting than for a restaurant or private home?

[Brad Ballinger]

Does anyone know if the liability on the establishment to not have guests drive home is different for a wine tasting than for a restaurant or private home?

←

Oh, there's liability. This is why pours are so controlled. I've worked one of these tastings years ago, and I pissed someone off by refusing to pour. The sponsor of such tastings usually takes out a one-day liability rider policy.

[Dinah Sarah]

Does anyone know if the liability on the establishment to not have guests drive home is different for a wine tasting than for a restaurant or private home?

←

Oh, there's liability. This is why pours are so controlled. I've worked one of these tastings years ago, and I pissed someone off by refusing to pour. The sponsor of such tastings usually takes out a one-day liability rider policy.

←

Good on ya ' for refusing a pour - said company that I worked with didn't have such a thing - better if we did - laws must be different here in the wild west of Alberta...

however on the upside - we have a privatized liquor system (only province in Canada - ) therefore marvelous pricing and choice - LOVE that part..

my favorite store being Kensington Wines - go in with your menu come out with a good white and red choice - some added knowledge -and all without feeling fleeced...

[eje]

Not sure if this is really the right place for this...I couldn't find a ZAP specific thread, so will post it here.

Speaking of large scale tastings, the annual Zinfandel Advocates & Producers festival is again looming on the horizon.

Website

The tasting event will be held Saturday January 28, 2006 in San Francisco at the Herbst Pavillion at Fort Mason in San Francisco, CA. Entry is $40 US for ZAP members, $50 US for non-members, and $60 US at the door.

There will be over 300 Wineries in attendance. If you are not spitting, please arrange to be carted from the festival in some manner.

Sadly, I believe most of the special events associated with the festival are already sold out.

I went a few years ago, and as much as I enjoy Zinfandel, I found it a little much for me. Sort of a Mardi Gras of Zinfandel. YMMV.

[alamut]

My restaurant used to send me to the occasional wine tasting. The bartender had quit drinking (go figure) and the manager only drank rum, so I wound up at more than a dozen of these things in the course of a year. Generally there were not open to the public, but local restaurants and wine retailers, but they had all the trappings of public tasting: people came to get hammered, the reps/pourers were easily distracted, and the crowds were killer. I figured out that if we got there at the opening, generally around 4 in the afternoon, it was an entirely enjoyable situation. There’s no one to jockey around at the tables and the pourers haven’t gotten worn out yet. The only remaining problem is finding my way through the Chardonnay forest to find something I’m actually looking for. (has any body in upstate NY even heard of Rias Baixas?)

[bleudauvergne]

We do the Foire au Vignerons Independents in Lyon once a year because we find that its the best way to build our cave, being able to research in advance the wines and then get to taste the ones we want. We narrow the 500+ vignerons down to a few of certain types we want to try, and limit our tastes to one or two types per day, about 15 tastes for one good day of tasting over the 3 or 4 times we go. We always spit, drink plenty of water, and eat plain bread in between tastes. We usually buy about 100-150 bottles each year. We've just started drinking the ones we bought in 2000. I am learning slowly but surely the virtues of attenting the larger tasting events. If you have done your research and know what you want to taste, you can get a lot out of it.

[jmcnally]

I also work these tastings regularly and would agree with Dinah Sarah's comments above. It's sometimes difficult to gauge the level of wine knowledge of the person you're pouring for, so it can make it a bit awkward to ask them good questions. But I thoroughly enjoy talking to people I pour for, whether they're educating me or I'm educating them.

But, for goodness sake, SPIT! Talking to drunk people is not fun at all.

[Daniel Rogov]

If the tasting is a "walk-about", I'll always arrive at least an hour early to start my tastings, to be armed with a minimum of three glasses so I can taste various wines side by side, to start with the whites, go to the reds (trying but not always succeeding in going from younger to older, lighter to more mature), and finally to the dessert wines. When the room becomes crowded enough that I can feel the perspiration, perfume or after-shave of others, I leave.

If the tasting is a sit-down, no problem at all for me and I can go 150 wines in a day in the proper setting, even taking time to double-up wines in different flights to check the credibility of my palate at the moment. In fact, I adore such tastings (mostly at events such as VinItaly or VinExpo where various consortia offer broad horizontal tastings of the wines of a given vintage year).

By the way....anyone thinking that tasting 100+ wines in a day is an easy chore is very, very mistaken. Calls for intense and almost exhausting concentration and the tasting is only the beginning of the day for on returning to one's hotel or the press room one must then formalize the day's tasting notes, getting them on one's own data base, sometimes even having to put them together in article form and get them off to one's newspaper and/or magazines. Perhaps on an amusing note, no matter how charming the city, the setting and the company, the thought of making love after tasting and writing about 150+ wines in a day is one that has never crossed my mind!

Edited January 11, 2006 by Daniel Rogov (log)