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Hollowine -> RE: Effective tasting at wineries (8/2/2008 2:32:29 PM)
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I have both experienced this phenomena as well as worked in some of the tasting rooms in Walla Walla as some of my friends own wineries up there. From the consumer side, it is frustrating and I think some of it may be related to the X-Factor in that you are there at the winery, hearing all the "positives" they can throw at it, often times smelling the sweet smell of oak as the current vintage ages in the room adjacent to the tasting room (or sometimes the tasting table is in the winery workings itself), and if you have heard any "buzz" about the wines or are speaking to the winemaker it is easy to want to buy. There is a sales slogan "people buy from people" and when you personalize the experience, perhaps the mind overrides the palate.
From the Tasting room perspective I think it is hard to specifically cater to educated palates when often times you are serving wines to people that show up by the bus load. Because of this, good glassware, ideal temperature conditions, etc are sometimes hard to offer, but I have seen many of the wineries, especially the smaller, more personal ones, willing to sit down with you and do more of a private tasting and even offer up some of the Reidel most of them have in the back. Some of the larger operations will offer private tastings for a fee, sometimes worth it sometimes not, depending on how they structure the tasting.
We go to Spring Release weekend every year in WW, and we haven't generally been able to get any feel for wines you don't already know when WW is flooded with thousands of wine tourists that weekend. We mostly go to pick up our held orders and get a sip of what we have already bought based on track record. For tasting new wineries and or more thorough tastings, we usually try to go up for a weekend off season and call ahead to some of our favorites to see if they will set aside some time to have a more relaxed, ideal tasting.
I will add one interesting tasting I did recently that has changed my thoughts somewhat on how wineries with >4 bottle portfolios do their tastings. Last March I was in the Barossa and McLaren Vale on business with a weekend to kill...(jeez, tough business trip, eh?) Since first time in Australia, I went to several large and small favorites of mine, but also was fortunate to get a visit at Mollydooker's new winery. What I really liked about how they handled their tasting was they did not do like many wineries where they have 12 bottles out on the bar, you taste the whites, then step up through the reds that are often progressed through in increasing fruit weight and price. Instead, we walked through the winery doing tank samples and we progressed from juice that did not make the grade and is being sold off in bulk, to wine that is their $15 offering, then their $50 offering, then their $80 offering, but as we tasted we stayed in a single varietal, so you were able to see the progression of Shiraz from bad to ok to good to very good. Then we went to the Cab and did it all over. I liked not jumping back and forth among varietals versus how some wineries do their tastings, and now often ask to taste in that order independent of how a winery has lined up their wares.
Just my two cents worth...
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