Trying Not To Be Rude in Tasting Rooms

I have no problem with a tasting room employee offering some information on what is in a wine and some data on how it was made, but when I start tasting it and they continue to prattle on along the lines of "You will/should taste/ smell this or that’ I want to tell them to STF up and let me taste, and that what they may think (or more likely have been told to recite or may have read) is of less than zero interest to me, as I will be forming my own opinions if and when they shut up and give me the peace to do so.

I understand that their next question after your taste may well be “How did you like the wine?” and when I didn’t, I have tried saying just that but they never, never leave well enough alone and always start grilling you about what you didn’t like about it and why, and I feel like saying that my impressions of a wine are my own business and that I don’t intend to waste any more time discussing it.

Makes me sound like some sort of curmudgeon (which may in fact be true) but I resent basically having to pass the inquisition. What are other people’s experience with tasting room personnel? Do they all take a course in customer annoyance, or are they just trying to be helpful because no one has told them not to do that? [scratch.gif]

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I’ll offer a different opinion here. If indeed it is a tasting room staff member, I would not go into any great detail on why I did not like the wine. If, on the other hand, I am tasting with the owner or winemaker, I think it is a great disservice to them to not be honest and provide specifics.

I am not talking about the limousine party stops on 29, but rather someplace that charges real dollars for their small production/high demand wine(s). As one of one thousand I think the critique is more apropos versus one in a hundred thousand that buys the wine. Of course, YMMV.

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Politely let them know you’d like to try it blind.

I understand that their next question after your taste may well be “How did you like the wine?”

Their job is to sell you wine.

What are other people’s experience with tasting room personnel?

Generally good, as long as you realize they’re there to sell you on a product and they’re trained to do just that.

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You sound fun.

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It’s so funny, because I totally understand where you come from. It’s like waiters. The best ones are just efficient, don’t overstay, don’t try to be chummy or talk to much, they’re just there invisibly when you need them. Efficient, fast, don’t miss stuff. I have the greatest respect for the profession, but I can’t stand when some waiter/waitress follows the “engage” script and starts with “do you want me to tell you about our specials?” only to then launch into a 20 minute recitation or the pat “hi, where are you guys from?” or “feeling hungry?” spiel. Yuck.

But here I’ve noticed a huge difference between US style service and European. Whenever I go to a restaurant with my American wife I’ll often find the efficient old school waiter (often from Europe) to be great and super-professional, whereas she thinks he/she’s short or rude. Just a difference in perception - here in America the customers expect them to be chummy, jokey, smiley, friendly and drone on and be cheerful, otherwise they don’t think they’ve gotten good service. To me it’s just grating. The less they talk, the more tip I’ll give them.

I often think about if I ever had a tasting room how I would play it? It doesn’t come naturally to me to be overly talkative, but then again, isn’t that what they majority want when they come? I probably shouldn’t be let near a tasting room. Ever. [wow.gif]

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Tasting room staff who tell me what I should be smelling or tasting do annoy me. I find it’s fairly easy to literally ignore them and tune them out while tasting. I also am usually taking notes and spitting/dumping during tastings, which might be why tasting room staff usually let me taste in peace.?

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You bet! I would certainly talk about the wines with the owners or winemakers - they likely have something interesting to say, and I can learn a lot from them, while the patter of the tasting room personnel is at the level of sideshow huckstering. There are a couple of winery employees that I trust enough to buy based on their opinions when I can’t taste and form my own.

In my market, we deal a lot with wine agents that are trying to sell wine. The good ones do not lie about what they are selling, they talk about the wine and let you make up your own mind, while admitting that such a thing as vintage variation exists.

I recall tasting at one agent’s table - it was a 1992 Brunello. I asked them what they thought of it (it was so bad, but I didn’t say that). They waxed on about how it was right up there with 1990 (an excellent vintage). They asked me what I thought and I decided to tell the truth - that I would never trust anything they told me in future and would never buy anything from them that I hadn’t tasted (in our market you sometimes have to take what an agent tells you on faith or rely on posted notes from other areas where they have already received and assessed the wines).

I understand that the tasting room employees’ job is to sell wine, but they would be able to do that better if someone trained the to allow potential customers to form their own opinions instead of trying to dictate to them what they were ‘supposed’ to taste.

BTW, I have also been subjected to tasting room opinion on wines that were clearly badly corked (I give them the benefit of the doubt - maybe they were people that are unable to detect TCA).

Try visiting the tasting rooms at some Rhode Island or Connecticut wineries. [barf.gif]

A lateral thought.

Before tasting the first wine, ask them if they would object to you making tasting notes. The act of note-taking may provide a useful barrier if needed, or perhaps shake them from their normal spiel. It does give the impression of someone who doesn’t need to be told what it tastes like.

I think it should certainly stop them from telling you what it will taste like, but if they can’t kick the habit, you can either make a pleasant joke about not wanting the answers spoon-fed, or more harshly tell them that you’re trying to capture the tasting note from your own palate and not theirs.

Excellent suggestion!

BTW I meant to tell you when kyle/kennedy came up to visit you two weeks ago, had a great time thank you, he said Larry shared the story about do you like black coffee or with cream and sugar. I said oh yeah, I know the story. LOL Then he said “we went two other places and they both used the same story”

Bastards!!! Stealing your intellectual property!!!

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Interesting. I’ve upped my game - ask them if anyone else was as ‘exhaustive’ as I was . . . [snort.gif]

Cheers.

I asked “did you get the VIP treatment?” and he responded “Larry just kept opening bottles.”

Welcome to the big leagues young man. LOL

As far as I can tell, most places here in Europe, the “treatment” described in the OP would be considered clearly impolite. True, I don’t really often even end up in places that have a tasting room in the sense that they have people on staff who are there specifically to sell some sort of a pitch to you, but even if they have external (that is, other than the winemaker or family members) employees pouring the wine, normally they are simply there to pour for you, provide some basic information IF solicited, and otherwise just let you get on with it. Probably at least two assumptions behind this: a) the visitor, in all likelihood, generally knows why he or she is there to begin with, b) they are entitled to an opportunity to make up their own mind without being pestered in the process.

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Being annoyed by the staff at tasting rooms is like being annoyed that rain is wet.

In general, I dislike tasting rooms for the reasons spelled out above. But if I go to a tasting room, that’s on me. I lower my expectations, accept my fate, and am sometimes pleasantly surprised.

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I’m curious. How did that turn out?!

That’s like how I am when I visit furniture stores; usually people will say hi and leave me alone because I give them a hostile look, but if they keep bothering me I’ll just tell them to leave me alone because I’m just looking.

Uneventful. One of the people manning the table was the agent and he knew they were full of it. For those not into Brunellos, it would be like telling potential customers that the 1991 Bordeaux you were selling was just as good as the 1990 (I was in the vineyards in 91 and it was miserable, as were the wines when released).

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