Private Appointment Tasting Etiquette

I was speaking with a winemaker/winery owner today about an incident that they recently had:

New potential customer calls and asks to do a private tasting in the middle of the week (they are normally only open on the weekend), and specifically asks to do a vertical tasting of the winery’s top estate wine - something that is not normally done unless it is a high-traffic weekend. Winery owner obliges, makes the appointment and opens fresh bottles of not only the wines they would usually pour, but a few extra bottles of their top wine to fulfill the customer’s wish of a vertical. During the tasting, the customer raves about the wines. After an hour of enjoying one-on-one hospitality with the winery owner, customer gives a big thank you for their time and then leaves without buying a single bottle…

My feeling about the situation can be summed-up with the following: [shock.gif] [scratch.gif] [head-bang.gif] [middle-finger.gif]

I can understand tasting at a new (to you) winery only to find that you are not really a fan of the wines, but I ALWAYS buy a mercy bottle or two. My first reaction is to look at this as one of the most inconsiderate things you can do in wine country.

Am I wrong? Short of the host spitting in your face or cracking jokes about your Momma, does anyone see behavior like this as justifiable?


Cheers!
Mike

Mostly, I only make appts like this if I’ve already their wine and found enough interesting in their
wines to make it worth both of our times. Usually, I’ve already communicated w/ the winemaker
that I liked his wines and liked to do a visit.
This situation is a bit hard to unravel. If he was just curious about those wines & wanted to try them,
based on “stuff” he’s heard, that’s OK. But to request a vertical of said wines seems a bit over the top.
It may be that he didn’t buy any wine because he didn’t have room in his luggage/whatever and may have
made a followup order later. If that was his plan, he should have indicated such to the winemaker that that
was his plan.
So there may be more to the story than what it seems. But I doubt it.
Tom

Two ideas:

  1. The said d-bag really didn’t like the wine, but couldn’t be honest about his/her opinoin.

  2. The said d-bag wanted to get back at the winery for whatever reason; make them go through all that trouble, taste some killer wine then bail to stick it to them!


    What idiot wouldn’t buy a bottle or two after all that, when you can usually get a good deal buying direct from the winery? My last tasting trip in Napa, I bought a bottle of Peju pond water even though the staff was a bunch of fumbling retards and the tasting room was so repugnant I thought I was on a bad acid trip!

Same here.

As regards the subject’s behavior, I pretty much think he is, as referred to above by Ty, a “d-bag”.

This is why some places need a steep tasting fee which people seem upset about in another thread

I wish that winemaking was only making and pouring wine, never having to mess with the whole selling thing. When we taste people we always open four or more bottles, usually more. As we are a new winery, ergo no track record and sell at a premium price point we realize that we have to prove ourselves and the only way to do it is by tasting people. We thought that 95 plus point scores from Parker and Spectator would sell the wines for us, but in truth they might have contributed 10 total cases of additional sales. We have had to hit the road and open our doors, which we were excited to do and it has allowed us to meet so many amazing people, but it was a ton of work.

When we set up a tasting there is more to it than people would imagine. Buying cheeses and bread, making sure the house is clean, stems are perfect and we have to give up time from our day jobs if it isn’t on a weekends. The total investment in time, food and the opportunity cost in the opened wines is surprising. It isn’t just the cost of producing the wines, but the lost revenue from not selling them that hurts. Last year we opened 17% of our total production as samples, our bank thinks we are crazy and possibly alcoholics. We know that some people may find our wines not to their liking, or to expensive and pass on the offering, we just hope that they have done a little due diligence and know they style and price points before they make an appointment.

Apparently they have spent some time with you then? [wink.gif]

Chris,

Yes, they used to love us, now they love our timely payments.

Will Victoria and I see you at Liquid Assets Saturday?

Russell

Definitely. I think it’s a matter of common decency (which, at times, seems not at all that common).

If that is the one in Encinitas then I don’t think so. I do have an appointment at Frank Murray’s for some Chablis that afternoon which I’m sure you would be welcome at if you guys get the time.
[cheers.gif]

For a vertical of a top cuvee, yes, a steep fee would be fully justifiable. For 3-4 pours of their basic wines, no, not so much.

This just sounds like an odd scenario. A guy goes out of his way for this special opportunity, but then doesn’t want anything? Strange.

Sounds like a sad situation and probably a crappy move.

But you never know. Unless it is an impulse purchase, I rarely buy wine in the tasting room. But I have tasted wines that I enjoyed and then bought in fairly large quantity for many years. Hopefully the guy is a big collector and in the end it will have been worth the winemaker’s effort.

Cheers!

\

  • Frank [cheers.gif]

Strange, or someone who has zero idea of what wineries are all about.

After reflecting on it more, the tasting w/o buying thing is ok - just hit one of the big wineries on on 29 or 12, pay your fee and walk. How anyone could think that it would be OK to do the same (w/o the fee) and monopolize a winemaker’s time, is beyond me…

The only time I have ever set up a tasting was during a trip to Beaune. I always bought several bottles, even if i wasn’t a fan of the wines. Something about a private tasting that makes me uncomfortable, even with a winery that I buy a lot of wine from. Personally I’d much rather attend a bigger tasting with other people there.

Ok I’m going to approach this from another angle - why did the winery owner ever agree to this without either putting a tasting fee on it or a minimum purchase? That the taster was an ass is self-evident, but it seems the winery owner should say “we can do appointment tastings of standard wines, but there’s a fee… oh, you wanted a vertical of out top wine? Are you picking up an order? We’d be happy to pull and have it ready to go for you at the tasting?”

OK, probably less snarky, but doing a special appointment tasting of a vertical of your top wines and not imposing a fee or anything is almost asking to be abused. Honestly, though, I’d never do that unless I was picking up a case quantity order - total dick move.

Consumers owe us nothing- but the “I’ll order when I get home” is right in there with “the check is in the mail”. If they don’t want to buy, it sucks, but what are you going to do- call them out? When it has happened to me at a private appointment, I ascribe it to a reminder I need to keep trying to make better wines, or that maybe I said something to offend (lord knows I do that easily enough), or maybe they got fired the day before and were too embarresed to say anything. But I never do a second private appt for someone who didn’t buy. They can vote with their wallet, i can vote with my time.

The scenario in the OP is clearly over the top, but let me pose a question that’s a little more down to earth:

On a recent trip through Amador County, my wife and I had on our list a place recommended by a friend, which held tastings by appointment only. We had already bought 3 cases of wine at our earlier stops, more than we originally intended on the trip. We did not feel comfortable making an appointment unless we felt it was realistic we would buy a bit of wine, so we skipped it.

Generally I only make appointments at places I’m familiar with, and probably picking up a shipment of wine anyway. I’d feel obligated to buy multiple bottles after taking up a bit of 1:1 time with the winemaker, which in the end will cause me to skip appointment only places that I’m not familiar with, even based on a good recommendation. What’s the etiquette for a place like this, who holds tastings by appointment only? Is there an expectation that the customer will purchase, and if so, how much?

I had a group scheduled at 2PM today. I drove all the way up to Napa (70 miles, one way) to do the tasting. At 2:20, I called them to see what was up. They were supposedly 15 minutes away. 15 minutes later, they called asking to reschedule for another day.

There are just rude people in the world. Dealing with them is unfortunately, the cost of doing business.

I know the original post was a peculiar situation but what about a normal tasting appointment? Do you feel obligated to buy wine after it?

What if you set up an appointment because a friend highly recommended it but it ended up not being your cup of tea?

Ok, I rarely enter a winery or make an appointment there when I know nothing about it - usually I know what to expect and if I like the style in principal.
Even if I do not like the wine vm after tasting I would buy 1, 2 or 3 bottles politely when the reception was friendly and I could taste the line-up.
Only if it´s a “commercial” tasting room open to passing-by customers I would probably say “maybe I come back later” … (if I don´t wanna buy anything)

I once “snowed” into a winery in the Languedoc - never heard about it - the weather was to bad for swimming and we had time … so why not, we saw a sign besides the street …
The people were very friendly, offered us bread, water and cheese, showed us everything (all in cement, no wood) and let us taste the last 3 vintages in all colours (2 reds, rose, white).
The wine was really awful !

Nevertheless I bought 6 reds and 1 rosé … the latter for mixing with mineral water … and I gave away the 6 reds to people as gifts who had no idea of good wine - including the postman who liked it vm !