5 Tips for the Tasting Room Initiate

Still on the fence about visiting a tasting room for the first time? Well it’s time to come down from your fence and open the gate to the world of wine tasting. For you I’ve compiled a list of five things to know before you go.

1. You DON’T need to be an expert. You should find the staff welcoming, friendly and willing to talk to you about wine, but not with the expectation that you know a great deal about it. Walk in ready to have a good time and you’re going to have a good time.

2. You’ll like what you like. No one is going to argue that you “should” like a wine when you don’t. As a new wine taster, your opinion of what you sample is going to be largely swayed by your subjective opinion of it: it either tastes good to you or it doesn’t. However, just because you don’t like it doesn’t mean it isn’t a good example of the varietal. This is where objective taste comes in. Experienced wine tasters often have a familiarity with the characteristics a wine in question should embody, whether or not the taster enjoys that particular wine.

3. Prepare your palate. Unless you plan to spit, preparing your palate also means preparing your belly with some foundation to stave-off intoxication. However, almost anything you eat beforehand is going to affect how the wine tastes to you. Leroy Radford, Flying Dreams Winery owner/winemaker, keeps the guidelines on what to eat before tasting simple:

“Don’t drink coffee and don’t eat spicy foods. Onions kill the palate. Keep it benign. Proteins are good. Grilled ham and cheese is perfect for a pre-tasting meal,” Leroy said.

Regardless of how ready your mouth is before you go, be prepared for the initial taste of wine to be somewhat jarring. After your taste-buds have adjusted to the alcohol, you may wish to reevaluate a wine you initially didn’t care for.

4. Get your sniff on. Sure most of us do it, hold the glass under our noses and breathe in, trying to find the aromas touted in the tasting notes provided by the winery (even my friend without a sense of smell will play along). Usually, what I smell is wine. Developing your ability to sense the subtleties in wine takes time and a reliance on using your sense of smell in unfamiliar ways (oh, you’ve already mastered retronasal breathing, you say?). Leroy advises you begin by smelling more of the world around you, from the delightful (freshly baked cobbler) to the funky (wet dog blankets).

“Make a mental, or better yet, written note about it. If you have a library of aromas from which to draw, your wine evaluation skills will increase in a quantum way,” Leroy said.

Have your pourer demonstrate the proper way to swirl your wine before you smell it. While some people swear by the deep inhale, others prefer taking quick successive sniffs (think  of a dog sniffing the air). Try both and decide which heightens your experience more.

5. You’re welcome to spit. In approved containers, of course. There are many reasons to spit when wine tasting, the primary one being moderating your consumption in order to safely drive or effectively evaluate several wines. Whatever your reason, if you're not an experienced spitter, a little time spent practicing with a non-staining liquid in the privacy of your home will spare you stained clothing and the inevitable, "We're going to have to cut you off now" jokes at the tasting room.

Whether you plan to call on friends or go it alone and make a new friend in your pourer, check out the listings below and make a plan to try something new. You’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner; I certainly did.