A term I don’t know, or a typo?
Damn iPad autocorrect.
Typo should have been “the right” FIXED
I thought you meant it was heading in the right direction: 
As used in many parts of South Asia, the term ghat (Bengali: ঘাট, Hindi: घाट ghāṭ “steps”) refers to a series of steps leading down to a water body, usually a holy river. In Bengali-speaking regions, this set of stairs can lead down to something as small as a pond or as large as a major river.
I know in some places the wineries are closer together than in others. I don’t drink at all when I taste (spitting only) and I don’t usually make appointments, so 7 or 8 is about what I can generally fit in in the places I’ve been to. That’s tasting as much as possible but taking a leisurely lunch where I will have a glass or 2 of wine, followed by a coffee and then back on the road.
If I were drinking while tasting, I wouldn’t be comfortable doing more than 2 or 3 wineries in one day.
I would totally agree. Two is nice, with time to relax and enjoy some good food in between. I see so many people get frantic about being late for their appointments, and wishing they could stay longer. We are talking about private tastings.
For those doing 7 or more tastings. How long do you generally spend per room? And are you driving? I usally look at a visit being at least a glass by the time im done. Eight glasses seems dam high.
As I stated before, there are so many variables at play here that it’s difficult to truly answer. If you are having private tastings with winemakers or principals, you obviously won’t be able to physically get to too many stops in a day.
But what really needs to be asked is this - or you trying to figure out palette fatigue or something else? If it’s palette fatigue, the same question could be asked about how many wines you should be tasting at any grand tasting such as Pinot Days, HdR, Rhone Rangers, IPNC, etc . . .
Cheers.
I think four or five is ideal.
You’re probably having too many tastings if you’re drinking about 1 - 1.5 bottles a night, every other night…
I don’t think the question was “what is ideal”, but “what is the max”. My wife and I did 13 wineries in a day in Walla Walla, which didn’t include the airport area (where tasting rooms are a block or two apart).
When going with friends strictly as a consumer for sampling at the tasting bar and then possibly doing some buying with no special privileges or perks (i.e. tours or food pairing) my friends and I have done a record of 11 Niagara, Ontario wine region wineries in a 10AM - 6 PM day with time to stop for lunch and ice cream at the local Avondale Dairy and even buy some cheese at the Upper Canada Cheese company. This was aided by one friend being the designated driver.
However, when going on arranged tours with special presentations by the winemakers and/or tours of the winery itself, I have found it best to cut that down to half and do no more than 5 in a day in order to take it all in properly.
Either way, I find both methods of touring wineries extremely enjoyable.
max is flexible though. Even if you wanted to do a dozen in the south of Chianti, you probably couldn’t - things are too spread out. On Rte 29 in Napa, it would be trivial. it also depends on whether you want to taste the range of what the winery makes and spend a bit of time or gulp and zoom. Look at it this way - most wineries open for tasting (in Napa and Sonoma at least) at around 10am. Tasting hours end at 5pm. So that’s 7 hours. CAN you do 12? Sure, but you’re rushing from one to the next and spending, max, 30 minutes tasting and traveling to the next winery.
And… max? Since when is more, better? Taste at places where you are interested in the wine. It’s not a ‘let’s get shitfaced for free’ thing.
For one thing, it would actually have to be free.
I do a mix of appointments and open tasting rooms when in Napa/Sonoma. Maybe four wineries in a single day sounds about right to me. My wife and I overdid it on our first trip and got up to around nine. We weren’t driving and we weren’t visiting any place that required an appointment (at least, not any place you couldn’t book with 30 minutes notice). It wasn’t ideal, but I can’t say I regret it. There are many worse things to do on vacation than drink wine (even to excess).
Depends on over what length of time. But I figure about 15-ish samples and my palate is done for the day.
The times when I got to 12 winery tasting rooms in a day, it did not feel rushed to me in the least. But that was just stopping at a tasting room, tasting maybe 5-6 wines each on average, then heading to the next stop. If tasting rooms were busy, that actually made things go faster since there was less opportunity to talk with the pourer. So spending 15-20 minutes at each winery was often plenty of time. And if the wines were crappy, I would not bother tasting too many of the wines and just move on. The wineries in Sonoma (RRV and Dry Creek Valley) were not too spread out, probably more spread out in Paso (there were not nearly as many wineries there back then). I was spitting some of the time but not all of the time (in retrospect I should have been spitting more), and also not spending the time to take notes. But I was not rushing around at all, and not trying to break any records, just going out to taste for the day. And this was back in the days when I was still sorting out what I liked and what I didn’t, and trying to become more familiar with various wine regions and wineries, so it was largely a matter of trying out a variety.
As mentioned before, that’s not what I do these days. I often have appointments and spend much more time at each winery so 3-4 is generally the number of places I try to schedule for a day. I’m sure I could manage a couple more just dropping in to tasting rooms, but even then I doubt that I’d stop at more than 6-8 max. in one day. And these days I spit all the time when I’m tasting - it’s amazing how big a difference that makes.
Yes there are. But most people DO drive, at least in Napa from what I’ve seen. If you’re not driving… eh, your liver, your choice. But it really does depend on circumstances. You’re just not doing that many wineries in some areas because of travel time. In others, you can, but the issue comes down to what you’re doing the tasting for. A LOT of people do a couple of tastings in the morning, grab lunch and maybe some wine, a couple more in the afternoon and… done. That’s usually what I do. Packing in as many drinks as possible just seems… I dunno, frat-boyish I guess. But again, as long as someone’s civil to the staff and not driving (or at least spitting), eh.
Ken - I’m kind of looking at this from a wine geek’s perspective, so I usually vet/research where to go beforehand. I don’t stop in random places anymore. I kind of did early on in my wine education, but that meant spending time and effort drinking stuff I didn’t like, so…
I stop in random places, i think it is part of the fun - that is how I discovered Porter Creek. But still, one scheduled appt in the morning, one in the afternoon, lunch, and 2-3 ramdoms mixed in is a pretty full day for me personally.
That’s what I gathered from your comments, Rick. Of course now that nearly every winery has a website, and we have sites like this one and Cellartracker to check out wines, it’s much easier to research ahead of time than it used to be, so there’s less reason even for people just starting to learn about wine to stop at that many places in one day. And I agree that there would be little reason for most of us “wine geeks” to visit 10-12 wineries in one day.
Ken I agree what I did was way too many for me particularly when we tasted maybe 18 different wines at Foxen alone [both sites together]. We were lucky Dick Dore was in and knows us and let us try - again - all the soon to be released but not yet released 2010s. He is very proud of the Syrah and for good reason.
We had just come back from the Central Coast Wine Classic and Monday was the last day of tasting on our trip [we could have done today but I was wined out].
4-5 wineries a day and maybe 5-6 wines per is about right for me. The kids were with us and they are way way younger and wanted to keep going. Never again.
2-3 if they are arranged visits with tours and tastings.
If I am just driving down Hwy 29 in Napa, I can hit 8+ easy. But you never really feel that good at the end of the day.
I am in total agreement. If you want to blow your brains out and taste a bunch of wines within a short window, just go to a Family Winemakers tasting, or California Cabernet Society, or Pinot Days, etc. Those tastings provide a great opportunity to taste, taste, taste - but they do not provide the “story” that can enhance the wine tasting experience.