So often we have guests on our tours say in hushed tones, “we don’t actually know that much about wine”. I feel like it’s a sign that the wine industry still hasn’t quite shed the stigma of snootiness. (cue: Alan Rickman in Bottleshock.)
I’ve also tasted wine elbow-to-elbow with ‘people who know stuff’ — sommeliers, wine makers, servers — and had that same feeling that I needed to know the right terminology in order to justify my preferences.
Well, here’s a term for you: horse puckey.
In the privacy of our own home we might just top off a wine glass (well over the suggested fill level) in order to save a trip to the fridge, drop an ice cube in a glass of Riesling, or gag a little over the idea of red wine and chocolate.
And we are unashamed.
However, there are some good reasons behind “wine tasting rules and etiquette” and I figured I’d share a few tasting tips with you so you too can taste with confidence and unashamedly defend your preferences…
Basics:
- Hold the glass by the stem. The stem is specifically there so you don’t warm the wine with your hands. If you hold the bowl of the glass, you’ll be warming the wine. Maybe you like it like that, I don’t know. It does change the flavor of it.
- Perfume should be avoided. This is as much an etiquette thing as it is about your own tastes. Your cologne will affect the taste of the wine — not just for you, but for everyone else in the room. Wearing scents of any kind to go wine tasting is like farting in a bakery. Or, I guess, farting in a tasting room. I mean, if you have a medical condition or something, you at least have an excuse for excessive flatulence, but there is no medical condition that requires you to wear perfume. I’m glad we’ve had this talk.
I can barely smell this wine, all I smell is some joker’s cologne!
- Lipstick = bad. That stuff doesn’t come off the wine glass. And then, this always happens: you turn your wine glass and sip and end up with a lipstick smudge on your nose.
- When you are waiting for the next pour, set your glass on the bar. Take your hands off it if you have to to keep yourself from moving the glass.
- No touching! Do not touch the bottles on the bar. Don’t try to pour your own, or in any way “help” staff with their job.
- Sip, swirl, swish, gargle, spit — whatever. It’s all good.
- Personal blends: do not. Finish (dump, spit, or swallow) your tasting before moving on to the next pour.
- Stay in order. There is a reason the wines are poured in a particular order. Typically tastings go from dry to sweet, light to heavy bodied. So on Red Mountain you’ll start with a dry white (if the winery has whites), on to sweet white, then rose, then light to heavy bodied red (or dry to “sweet” red), then non-fortified dessert wines, then fortified wines. Once you’ve gone through the line-up, some tasting rooms will allow you to revisit at which point it’s fine to jump around.
- Go easy on the descriptives. Yeah, so just today I tried to describe the difference between my favorite wine at Frichette and the others. All of their wines are amazing, I’d be proud to serve them to anyone. I just have a real leaning toward their Cabernet Sauvignon (Club Only! Wooo!). I made the mistake of saying that the Cab was the “Hugh Jackman” of the lineup, and the others were Brad Pitts. As in, they are all fabulous and, like Huge Jackman or Brad Pitt, I’d love to have them in my cellar. I should have just shut up though because then I thought maybe that was insulting, given Brad Pitt did leave Jennifer Aniston for Angelina Jolie and according to not very good sources he is kind of a big ol’ stoner. So there I was casting all of those aspersions on innocent bottles of wine. It’s the kind of comment that’ll wake me up at 3 am 10 years from now and force me to write a long-winded apology to Shae. I hope we’re still friends then. So, I said all that to say “be careful how you gush”.
Bad Wine:
If you taste something you hate, no problem (but don’t say out loud that you hate it or that it’s the Jack Nicholson of their offerings).
However, there are some flaws that can occur and if you don’t speak up you won’t get a real taste of the wine. Two common ones are:
- “Corked” wine. Smells musty, like a wet dog or old newspapers. It’s harmless and the wine is drinkable, it just sucks. Corked wine is the result of corks’ natural fungi coming in contact with chlorine (sometimes used in sanitation of equipment). The tasting room staff should pick this up before ever serving it but for whatever reason a corked bottle may just make it to the tasting bar.
- Oxidation. If a wine appears dark in color and/or smells a bit like vinegar, it’s probably oxidized.
I was at a function once where the wineries in attendance had to use licensed servers employed by the venue to pour their wines. You could go from table to table and the winemaker would stand next to the table while the server poured. I got a glass of badly corked wine.
I figured the winemaker wanted to know, so I rushed back with my glass and said, “Can you smell this? What do you think?” He was mortified and dumped the glass and asked the server to pour me another. She grabbed the same bottle and began to fill my glass again.
“No, that needs to be poured out and open a new bottle.” he told her.
“Nobody else complained about it” she stated, flatly.
He went pale.
I don’t like to suggest a flaw if I find one, I’d rather ask the staff to identify it and make the judgement on their own. If you have people standing around and you suggest “corkage” they’ll start to smell wet dog stank on everything. Give staff the opportunity to pull the bottle and repour for anyone at the bar.
Here’s hoping those tips will help you the next time you are wine tasting. I welcome your own tasting tips in the comments below!
