Wine Tasting Room Etiquette

Wine Tasting Room Etiquette
Hi, I’m Farley and I am here today to tell you how to act in a tasting room because some people don’t know. The first thing you are going to do when you come in is you might see a tasting menu and it might have prices on it so some times you will be charged for tasting and some times it will be complimentary. Either way, feel free to ask in the beginning because you want to know. You will usually get a list whether it is written up on the board or on a piece of paper of wines are being poured that day or they might just tell you verbally. When you do get a taste, it is probably going to be a small amount. Maybe an ounce poured, maybe less or maybe a little bit more. You should never complain about the amount of the pour even if you are paying because usually the winery averages it out for the amount of wine that you are getting versus the price of the wine and it is usually fairly reasonable. So what you are going to do is you are going to taste the wine as we talked about to do earlier and then at that point you can do one of two things. If you are driving or worried about drinking too much wine because you want to go to a bunch of different wineries, there is the option of spitting. You might see something that looks like this. It could be larger; it could be not much smaller and could be different colors. They are usually placed sporadically along the tasting room bar and you can either spit the wine out that you already have in your mouth or just take very small sips and then dump the rest of the wine into what is called a spittoon or pour bucket. There is also usually some form of water on the table. It is up to you whether or not you want to rinse your glass out with the water and then pour the rest of it into the spittoon. Personally I feel that it is better to have a little bit of wine in your glass and a little bit of water because the water is going to water the wine down. If you want to rinse it out though, it is completely up to you. You can do that but just know that it is not necessary I say unless you are going from red to white. Like if there is sort of a desert wine at the end would be the only time they would serve white at the end. Then it is just a matter of going through the menu. I advise against making faces when you don’t like the wine. It is perfectly acceptable to have an opinion and to dislike the wine but it is also a matter of courtesy as to not to go over the top with your dislike for the wine. Another thing to think about when you are finished with the wine testing is that some wineries do refund the testing fee if they charged one if you make a bottle purchase. So it is a good thing to go ahead and ask, hey, do you credit this back because if you have already paid $6.00 to $10.00 for the tasting and a bottle of wine is from $10.00 to $20.00, it makes sense to go ahead and buy a bottle of wine. That way you will have something to remember your visit by and you have not thrown away money even though I don’t think wine tasting is throwing away money. Some people think that they need something to take with them to remember it by.