+1!
Sure, it depends on the length of time, situations, person, and more, but personally, I can get through a lot more samples than that and (I think) reasonably evaluate each one in the course of 6+ hours. As I mentioned, spitting only.
Based on “my” experiences at Pinot Days, Family Winemakers and ZAP, anything more than 4 wines at four wineries is a waste of my time and effort. Even spitting instead of drinking, after tasting about 12 to 16 wines, I can no longer truly taste the wines, even though I drank a lot of water. Whether it is palate fatigue, taste bud death or allergies I don’t know. If I could arrange winery visits by varietals it might help, as would breaks and meals. No less than one bottle of water consumed at each winery.
How many of you can identify the nuances of wine number 26 while maintaining a three point stance at the bar to keep the room steady?
I get what you’re saying, and I think it depends on what your goal is. If I set up an appointment, I expect to be able to talk to someone who can answer some in-depth questions and really give me some insight into the producer whose wines I’m tasting. In general, though, I’m going to tasting rooms where that usually can’t happen, and I’m hoping to taste quite a few wines from one region in a limited period of time. That is how I get a feel for that region. I can learn much of the region’s story at home. I understand that I might not know the ins and outs of each producer that way, but my goal at this point is usually to broadly learn about the wines of the region I’m visiting.
I’m not trying to say that any approach is better than any other, but I do think mine is valid even for going to cellar door tasting rooms, as is that of making appointments at a small number of places and making an entire day of that.
I do think I can identify a reasonable amount of nuances in wine number 26 if it’s been 3+ hours and I haven’t been drinking (or not more than a glass or two with lunch). I’m not taking the most detailed notes in that case, but I think I can still be evaluating effectively and learning a lot. no 3-point stance necessary; totally sober.
Wow, at 62, I thought I’d built up a tolerance through years of practice but you’re out of my league. It may work for you, but if you have people accompanying you, they may not have your tolerance, so keep that in mind for groups.
Everyone’s different in this respect. I tasted 70+ wines over 3-5 hours in an afternoon at six different wine events in the past few months, and in most cases I could have tasted more with no problem. I tasted at another event last month with 36 wines and that seemed like nothing at all. But I know not everyone can just go out and do that…it takes practice and a good deal of focus…and even then I’m not sure everyone would be able to do it. And I would have a much easier time of discerning the strengths and weaknesses of 60 wines tasted in a few hours at a single large event than I would with tasting 5 wines at 12 tasting rooms over the course of a day.
Maybe I wasn’t clear, but I don’t drink at all when tasting. If I have 1-2 glasses at lunch, that’s all I would have consumed all day. no more. I spit everything out when tasting. Are you saying you (or some people) get drunk from tasting and spitting?
Drunk maybe not. Though even with spitting, I personally still feel the effects.
Did 11 wineries one day years ago in Napa – 49 wines. Sadly, this was in my pre-spitting days, yet we all managed to maintain…somehow. Food, water and a break here and there probably helped. Really tried to clear a dozen, but the guy at V. Sattui just kept finding new things for us to taste. Wouldn’t even dream of trying this today.
Last week, judged 134 wines in one day - the last 60 of which were Cabs. Obviously spitting in this case, but I didn’t want to see, taste, or even call a Cab after that!
It isn’t too much to do 10-12 wineries in a day if you’re actually on an acquisitions trip like I was the times that I did it. If you’re going to buy wines, then hitting a lot of wineries is easy because of the focus. However, this requires a lot of dedication and research.
First, you look up what’s in your current inventory and then decide what you’d like to add to it that you know will be in the area that you’re headed to. Then, based on those additions, you know which wineries you will hit and plan out your actual route this way. Using this tactic, not only was I able to hit 10-12 wineries a day and make all my desired acquisitions, we even had time to engage in several chats and do some browsing, tasting and shopping at every stop. This with 4 other people with me.
This is incidentally the exact same approach I take when I go to Montreal to hit up the SAQ. I check the inventory, see what I’d like to get, find out which stores have it, and then hit them all in a pre-planned route. This has allowed me to reduce my shopping days down to one morning and a bit of the afternoon leaving the rest of the time free.
I love everything about wine country except the wine tasting part! When I’m in wine country we limit it to 1-3 visits at the most per day. Any more than that and I lose interest.
[quote=“Eric Anderson”]Did 11 wineries one day years ago in Napa – 49 wines. Sadly, this was in my pre-spitting days, yet we all managed to maintain…somehow. Food, water and a break here and there probably helped. Really tried to clear a dozen, but the guy at V. Sattui just kept finding new things for us to taste. Wouldn’t even dream of trying this today.
Last week, judged 134 wines in one day - the last 60 of which were Cabs. Obviously spitting in this case, but I didn’t want to see, taste, or even call a Cab after that![/quote]
For how long??
Sorry Andrew, I was thinking “overall,” (time, travel, meals), along with “drinking” at each winery, not research or judging. I don’t have a highly trained palate, nor a very good sense of taste to be a judge. I develop palate fatigue after about 20 red wines spitting and 10 sipping.
If you wake up and can’t remember two or more of the previous days wineries, you’ve done too many.
I no longer see much value in speed tasting and flooring it to the next winery. Quality over quantity. If you want quantity, plan your own tasting or attend some of the numerous mass tasting events. It’s easier when the the wineries come to you.
RT
Particularly if you are spitting, I don’t think it is a question of the number of wines but rather the types of venues and what you seek to achieve. If you are going from public tasting room to public tasting room, then you could probably hit 8-10 easily in a day, if not more, depending on long you take with the wines and how many they have to taste. However, if you are making appts and doing tours/tastings with a winemaker than you may not want to do more than 3-5 in a day depending on how long you think they will last and how far appart they are…
On various trips that I’ve taken, I’ve approached it differently because of different goals. For instance, I’ve probably done a day with 12+ wineries in Napa (many, many years ago) and went from tasting room to tasting room - gave a cursory snapshot of a lot of different things which worked well when I was just getting into wine. On later trips to Napa, I would arrange for 4-6 appts a day with particular winemakers or wineries that I followed and wanted to spend time at - some had a lot to taste and others just a few wines so it was driven more by time then number of wines. On a recent trip to Burgundy, I probably visited 3-5 per day but at some tasted 10-20+ wines given the number that some produce (I think at one alone I tasted 35-40 wines between 2 vintages). However, just to show another extreme, on my last trip to CA, I visited 2 wineries over 3 days, with one visit taking most of an afternoon and a “visit” to another winery spread across large parts of 2 different days.
I think that first you have to figure out what your goals are and go from there - if you spit at tastings as I do (well, 90% of the time) then volume of wines shouldn’t be an issue, just time and distance applicable to each visit.