Visiting Wineries -- Drinking or Tasting

When you go to a winery, do you go to drink or taste? The answer to that question should significantly influence where you choose to go and it will significantly influence your experience.

What do I mean? If you are going to drink, it means that you are perfectly happy being given several pours of wine to take to a table likely sitting outside and getting to admire the scenery. You might be given some finger food to go with it or you might have the opportunity to buy food with it. This can make for a lovely day, but don't confuse it with tasting wine. 

Why do I say that? When you go on one of these wine drinking adventures, you're not learning about the wine. Unless there are vast differences in the wine, you don't really remember what you've had. By the time you leave, you might have consumed the wine and you might have thoroughly enjoyed the wine, but it's unlikely you have really tasted the wine.

What's the difference? When you visit a winery to do tasting, you are enjoying one wine at a time. The wine will be served to you at proper temperatures. It will be served by someone who knows about the wine. It's not just about pouring some cool tasting alcohol down your gullet, rather it's about experiencing the wine. 

Let's back up for a second and talk about our first two experiences together in wine country. The first one, we went on small group tours. We were taken by old-style, 14 or 16 passenger vans to about 6 wineries per day. You paid a tasting fee and if you bought enough wine there, your tasting fee was waived. Some of the wineries were large and quite commercial while others were smaller, but the mere fact that we were coming in in groups like that told the winery that we were not serious. And, we were treated as such.

On our next visit, a driver arranged for visits to several wineries per day for us. When we arrived, we were the only ones there. At the first winery we visited, we were greeted by two tasting room workers, both women as it turns out. One was young and less experienced while the other had been in wine country for quite some time. Key was that each had wine knowledge and in particular, knowledge of the particular wines we were tasting. Also key was that they really loved their boss -- the proprietor -- and they had a passion for that winery.

Pours were small, but if we wanted an additional taste, they were generour. They explained what we were drinking abd what gave each wine its own personality. They asked us questions -- what did we think about the wine? Why did we like it or dislike it? They explained how it paired with food. We were not rushed. We were not bullied. We experienced the wines, and to this day, we still drink the wines from that winery.

I know -- when you are going around to all those wineries and someone else is driving you, you want to get a buzz. You want that feeling of having spent your day immersed in alcohol. Trust me; it will happen. But, it will be a more gradual movement there. 

This is not really what is key, however. If getting drunk is key, go wine drinking, not tasting. Or, perhaps better yet, as I learned as a teenager, wine is fine, but liquor is quicker, so go whiskey drinking or go guzzle tequila. [NOTE: please drink responsibly and if you take any of these actions, please have a designated driver or paid driver who will not have consumed alcohol.]

Frankly, when you go wine drinking or tasting at a winery, you are paying far more for what you drink than you would pay if you were at home or the freebie you might get at a friend's house. So, to my mind, you should be going to taste and to enjoy the whole experience. You should be getting somewhat of an education. If you're not, bring me with you and I will educate you.

So, you're not in real wine country and you say you can't find that experience? I've had it in almost every state in which I have gone wine tasting. It's not just California or even Oregon and Washington. I've had it in Texas and Arozona and New Mexico, and in New York and even in North Carolina and Georgia.

Please trust me. I assure you that if you try your hand at tasting, it will be an entirely different experience and for many of you, it will be more pleasurable as it will titillate all the senses. As I said, if you need help, bring me. Please bring me.