Trying Not To Be Rude in Tasting Rooms

[Ramon_C]

Try visiting the tasting rooms at some Rhode Island or Connecticut wineries.

Why go that far for the experience? Go to one in Jersey.

[Paul_McCourt]

Try visiting the tasting rooms at some Rhode Island or Connecticut wineries.

Why go that far for the experience? Go to one in Jersey.

Jersey has a paywall up.

If tasting room staff get annoying (and most are perfectly pleasant) I simply go fairly mute. Shrug my shoulders, mumble “mmm-hmm” until they give up.

[Nate_Simon]

Really depends on the dynamics.
Person asking is tasting room employee, wine just not to my taste, I smile appreciatively.
Wine is overtly flawed? I let them know, regardless of who it is.
Person asking is the owner/winemaker? I’m honest, in a respectful and discreet way.

[ChrisWolff]

You sound fun.

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 opinion

You’re everything that’s wrong with the wine world

[Ben_M_a_n_d_l_e_r]

Maybe I can help here. I have friends who work or have worked in tasting rooms from tiny family wineries in Virginia to cult Napa wineries to big brands and it’s preeeetty much the same story regardless. The number one most important thing you need to work in a tasting room is the ability to talk to strangers for 8 hours straight. The number two most important thing you need to work in a tasting room is the ability to sell wine, and in most contexts, that does not mean pouring people wine and then leaving them alone to contemplate it.

One person who worked at a tasting room in Napa Valley (small production, expensive wines) said that the majority of her sales came from charming the pants off rich Texan men. One person who poured at a large winery on Highway 29 said that if people seemed like they wanted to be left alone, if he didn’t try to engage with them they were much less likely to buy bottles than if he did. Someone who worked at a tasting room on weekends in the Sierra Foothills said that most of the people visiting were not oenophiles but wanted a fun day out while visiting the area, and that many people seemed to actively want to be told what they were smelling and tasting, so that they didn’t have to worry about offering an opinion that they were afraid might be “wrong”.

Being part of this (quite large) community here on WB can sometimes obscure the fact that most people who buy and drink wine - and visit wineries - are not mega wine nerds like us. Tasting room experiences are, by and large, not designed to cater to this market. There are exceptions, of course. Some of the winemakers/owners on this board may be examples of that. One of the most exciting tastings I went to recently was at Peay, tasting with the assistant winemaker in their cellar in Cloverdale, nerding out over wine chemistry and geology. If you want that kind of experience, you can try to prioritize finding it when you are going tasting.

If what you really want when you go tasting is to be left alone with the wines, you can say that, politely. Tasting room staff have usually seen a pretty broad spectrum of personalities come through and won’t be too surprised, and if you’re kind and pleasant then that already gives you an edge over a lot of other visitors. I did have a particularly gregarious host at a tasting recently at a large-ish winery. I said something along the lines of: “thank you so much for taking care of us today. If it’s alright with you, what we’d like to do is spend some time alone with the wines to get to know them and talk amongst ourselves, but then afterwards reconvene with you to ask some questions, hear some more about specific wines, and talk about what we might like to take home with us - how does that sound?” They were super nice and generally left us to our own devices except to occasionally check in. Mentioning up front that you are interested in buying - even if you really don’t like the wines and ultimately don’t buy anything - can help to put your host’s mind at ease, especially when their job description contains the term “drive sales” fifteen times. Oh, and tip well, especially if you don’t buy any wines.

[Robert_S_Luke]

You sound fun.

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 opinion

You’re everything that’s wrong with the wine world

Huh??

[Brent_C_l_a_y_t_o_n]

I am not a big fan of the tasting room experience in general but another consideration is that some employees earn commission on wines sold so they are motivated to talk to you, and talk about the wines.

[H_Wallace_Jr]

If what you really want when you go tasting is to be left alone with the wines, you can say that, politely. Tasting room staff have usually seen a pretty broad spectrum of personalities come through and won’t be too surprised, and if you’re kind and pleasant then that already gives you an edge over a lot of other visitors. I did have a particularly gregarious host at a tasting recently at a large-ish winery. I said something along the lines of: “thank you so much for taking care of us today. If it’s alright with you, what we’d like to do is spend some time alone with the wines to get to know them and talk amongst ourselves, but then afterwards reconvene with you to ask some questions, hear some more about specific wines, and talk about what we might like to take home with us - how does that sound?” They were super nice and generally left us to our own devices except to occasionally check in. Mentioning up front that you are interested in buying - even if you really don’t like the wines and ultimately don’t buy anything - can help to put your host’s mind at ease, especially when their job description contains the term “drive sales” fifteen times. Oh, and tip well, especially if you don’t buy any wines.

[Pau1_M3nk3s]

I was tasting a few weeks ago and had the opposite experience. The owner would pour, go away, and we would have time to ourselves to deliberate, pour another taste or whatever, and he would come back ask our opinions and only then give us details on the wines. It was relaxed and conducive for buying.

[Cris_Whetstone]

What Ben said.

I would add that after really diving in and becoming a geek, “tasting” rooms became a place to avoid rather than part of the experience. There is more than one reason for that. Its more useful to think of tasting rooms as they exist today as a point of sale location for a winery. Its a retail place that is often tied to tourism. Its not a place for discovering the next unheard of great wine. Its not a place to get a comprehensive look at a winery lineup. There are exceptions.

Remember that most “wine tasting” in wine country is actually wine drinking. Non-geeks are out to have some fun and try some wines from wineries they would not normally try at home. These rooms are not there for the purpose of letting geeks get their serious on. Its best if with non-wine serious people to just drink and enjoy the ride. One positive of tasting rooms is that the fees don’t leave you feeling obligated to buy.

If you really want to get to get a good tasting/discovery at a winery then find some contacts and set up something private outside the retail front. That’s going to be easier of you are already a customer of course. But if you can work it with some connections made here on WB you can go do some barrel tastings and maybe some of the wines that are not poured in the front end. Maybe even some library stuff. And buy something if you are allowed in. Don’t waste wine staff time just for your good times.

Winery tasting rooms are a place of commerce. Not for study.

[Wes_Barton]

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.

Having a notebook out and scrawling in it makes no difference to these people. They may be trained to help novices feel comfortable tasting wine by trowing out some helpful descriptors, but that’s one device in the toolbox. Failing to read the customer and sticking to a one-size-fits-all aggressive script is just being terrible at the job. I’d hope they’re just new to the job, uncomfortable and uncertain, so that’s what they are resorting to in trying their best.

[Tim_Heaton]

I would add that after really diving in and becoming a geek, “tasting” rooms became a place to avoid rather than part of the experience. There is more than one reason for that. Its more useful to think of tasting rooms as they exist today as a point of sale location for a winery. Its a retail place that is often tied to tourism. Its not a place for discovering the next unheard of great wine. Its not a place to get a comprehensive look at a winery lineup. There are exceptions.

Remember that most “wine tasting” in wine country is actually wine drinking. Non-geeks are out to have some fun and try some wines from wineries they would not normally try at home. These rooms are not there for the purpose of letting geeks get their serious on. Its best if with non-wine serious people to just drink and enjoy the ride. One positive of tasting rooms is that the fees don’t leave you feeling obligated to buy.

If you really want to get to get a good tasting/discovery at a winery then find some contacts and set up something private outside the retail front. That’s going to be easier of you are already a customer of course. But if you can work it with some connections made here on WB you can go do some barrel tastings and maybe some of the wines that are not poured in the front end. Maybe even some library stuff. And buy something if you are allowed in. Don’t waste wine staff time just for your good times.

Winery tasting rooms are a place of commerce. Not for study.

^ this

[Matthew_King]

This sounds like someone going into the Bada Bing! And complaining when one of the staff starts flirting with him and asks if he wants a lap dance!

[GregT]

What Cris said. If you go to a customer service place and don’t expect customer service, that’s a little weird. Some people like to think they’re really really understanding a wine by trying to have their own experience, but if that’s the case, why not just stay home and taste undisturbed.

If you go to a place where people go to have fun and pass the time, it’s not the same as going to a library to study. Wrong place and wrong attitude to bring.

Other people are there to have fun and maybe learn a little bit about wine along the way and maybe pick up some wine to re-live the experience.

I’ve gone to plenty of places, both on business and for pleasure, and if I’m on the customer side of the bar, I’m a customer like everyone else. If the person behind the bar feels chatty, well, isn’t that what wine is about? And if they want to offer some suggestions, well, I don’t have to pay close attention, do I?

However, If I’m that impressionable, I’m definitely going to ask them if I like the wine! I want to be sure to have a good experience!

[Markus_S]

Surprised nobody used this yet:

People seem to want “fun” when they go out, but why can’t they learn as well?
I think you can do both. If the pourer is rambling on with the flavor wheel, I simply
smile and nod, ponder the glass and go mmm… Works like a charm.

[JMReuter]

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.

To repeat what Ben and Cris both said, the current approach, of trying to engage with visitors, is going to sell a lot more wine than the hands off approach that wine geeks may be after. Honestly, after having had the privilege of barrel tasting with winemakers (whose mailing lists I belong to), I can’t imagine spending any time in tasting rooms.

[wspohn]

What Cris said. If you go to a customer service place and don’t expect customer service, that’s a little weird. Some people like to think they’re really really understanding a wine by trying to have their own experience, but if that’s the case, why not just stay home and taste undisturbed.

I go to tasting rooms to assess wines either for later reference but mostly to decide if they have any place in my cellar. Somebody who is standing there running off a list of tastes I WILL surely experience is counterproductive to my purpose. I am not one of the passengers on the bus of people that show up and try and get the biggest pours so they can get tiddly for free by hitting a bunch of tasting rooms.

And how exactly am I to go home and taste if I am hundreds or thousands of miles and often an international border away from where I live and many or most of the wines are unavailable in my market?

If I have the time, I arrange a tasting with the winery reps/owners/winemakers and such but if I am just interesting in, say, checking out a wine that I already own in other vintages and want to decide if I should add the current vintage I just want to be left alone to taste. If I have any questions I will ask them. I’m the guy that often stops a tasting room person from pouring too much in my glass, as anything more than what I need to taste is going down the drain, not the guy with the buzz off the bus waiting for the server to turn their backs so he can fill his glass.

I guess I am the flip side of the people that are going to buy if flattered and coddled by staff - that is more likely to have me walk away if they don’t turn it off when they ask them to.

And that WAS a very good post, Ben.

I’ll add one rather surreal note about a tasting I did in the early 80s. I was down racing a vintage car at Laguna Seca and when I did that I tried to drop into small wineries to see what was up. One that I rarely missed was Monterey Peninsula Winery - they were doing some rather interesting single vineyard Zins in those days. Their small tasting room on the main road was shared by another winery (whose name has been erased by time and lack of interest from my memory, but they were a bulk producer of low quality wine).

I was asking about RS on something like a 79 Ferrero Ranch Zin and some bloated bleach blonde from the bus that had just unloaded was grabbing the server’s arm to ask if she could get a discount if she bought two gallon jugs of something called (and I do recall this) “Monterey Nights Red” - it had stars on the label - instead of just one.

I did not mean to imply that all tasting room staff were robots working from a script intended to sell you wine. In fact many of them (especially in CA and OR and small BC wineries) I have come across were wine fans themselves and had interesting things to say about some of the wines, and that was a positive experience. The all too common version though, was the ones I have described when I started the thread. To give that sort of pourer their due, they probably don’t know that much about wine and they have to be seen doing something, even if it is reading off a script, pretending to know what they are talking about. But I still wish they would take suggestions to knock it off from tasters that don’t want to hear it all.

One other experience I had that bears repeating - I had made the mistake of setting up back to back meetings at Mouton and Margaux and had to rush to make the second one on time, not having taken into account the leisurely pace of many things French. We were slightly late to Margaux, which earned a raised nose from Madame who was hosting the tasting, and she only thawed out when I had asked some questions about the growing and vinification that revealed that I was a fellow wine geek, after which she talked to me and neglected the other couple who clearly were non-geeks.

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

Let’s not lose sight of the fact that one can accept something and simultaneously be annoyed by it.

I agree with Markus that tasting rooms can most definitely be a place of learning, not just a place “for fun.” Most tasting rooms I’ve been to have a rather subdued atmosphere, and are far from the wild, hootin’-an-hollerin’ frat scene some here are starting to imply; along with anybody I might be tasting with, I’ve frequently been the only customer in the tasting room at any given time. I can’t buy into the idea that tasting rooms are not a place of learning. I think there’s a wide range of opportunity, allowing customers of different types to get from the experience that which they are looking for — it might just take a little bit of effort, communication, patience and understanding to get there — and, of course, there will be exceptions.

[DougS]

Maybe I can help here. I have friends who work or have worked in tasting rooms from tiny family wineries in Virginia to cult Napa wineries to big brands and it’s preeeetty much the same story regardless. The number one most important thing you need to work in a tasting room is the ability to talk to strangers for 8 hours straight. The number two most important thing you need to work in a tasting room is the ability to sell wine, and in most contexts, that does not mean pouring people wine and then leaving them alone to contemplate it.

One person who worked at a tasting room in Napa Valley (small production, expensive wines) said that the majority of her sales came from charming the pants off rich Texan men. One person who poured at a large winery on Highway 29 said that if people seemed like they wanted to be left alone, if he didn’t try to engage with them they were much less likely to buy bottles than if he did. Someone who worked at a tasting room on weekends in the Sierra Foothills said that most of the people visiting were not oenophiles but wanted a fun day out while visiting the area, and that many people seemed to actively want to be told what they were smelling and tasting, so that they didn’t have to worry about offering an opinion that they were afraid might be “wrong”.

Being part of this (quite large) community here on WB can sometimes obscure the fact that most people who buy and drink wine - and visit wineries - are not mega wine nerds like us. Tasting room experiences are, by and large, not designed to cater to this market. There are exceptions, of course. Some of the winemakers/owners on this board may be examples of that. One of the most exciting tastings I went to recently was at Peay, tasting with the assistant winemaker in their cellar in Cloverdale, nerding out over wine chemistry and geology. If you want that kind of experience, you can try to prioritize finding it when you are going tasting.

If what you really want when you go tasting is to be left alone with the wines, you can say that, politely. Tasting room staff have usually seen a pretty broad spectrum of personalities come through and won’t be too surprised, and if you’re kind and pleasant then that already gives you an edge over a lot of other visitors. I did have a particularly gregarious host at a tasting recently at a large-ish winery. I said something along the lines of: “thank you so much for taking care of us today. If it’s alright with you, what we’d like to do is spend some time alone with the wines to get to know them and talk amongst ourselves, but then afterwards reconvene with you to ask some questions, hear some more about specific wines, and talk about what we might like to take home with us - how does that sound?” They were super nice and generally left us to our own devices except to occasionally check in. Mentioning up front that you are interested in buying - even if you really don’t like the wines and ultimately don’t buy anything - can help to put your host’s mind at ease, especially when their job description contains the term “drive sales” fifteen times. Oh, and tip well, especially if you don’t buy any wines.

Really excellent post.

[Tom_Taylor]

What Cris said. If you go to a customer service place and don’t expect customer service, that’s a little weird. Some people like to think they’re really really understanding a wine by trying to have their own experience, but if that’s the case, why not just stay home and taste undisturbed.

I go to tasting rooms to assess wines either for later reference but mostly to decide if they have any place in my cellar. Somebody who is standing there running off a list of tastes I WILL surely experience is counterproductive to my purpose. I am not one of the passengers on the bus of people that show up and try and get the biggest pours so they can get tiddly for free by hitting a bunch of tasting rooms.

And how exactly am I to go home and taste if I am hundreds or thousands of miles and often an international border away from where I live and many or most of the wines are unavailable in my market?

If I have the time, I arrange a tasting with the winery reps/owners/winemakers and such but if I am just interesting in, say, checking out a wine that I already own in other vintages and want to decide if I should add the current vintage I just want to be left alone to taste. If I have any questions I will ask them. I’m the guy that often stops a tasting room person from pouring too much in my glass, as anything more than what I need to taste is going down the drain, not the guy with the buzz off the bus waiting for the server to turn their backs so he can fill his glass.

I guess I am the flip side of the people that are going to buy if flattered and coddled by staff - that is more likely to have me walk away if they don’t turn it off when they ask them to.

And that WAS a very good post, Ben.

I’ll add one rather surreal note about a tasting I did in the early 80s. I was down racing a vintage car at Laguna Seca and when I did that I tried to drop into small wineries to see what was up. One that I rarely missed was Monterey Peninsula Winery - they were doing some rather interesting single vineyard Zins in those days. Their small tasting room on the main road was shared by another winery (whose name has been erased by time and lack of interest from my memory, but they were a bulk producer of low quality wine).

I was asking about RS on something like a 79 Ferrero Ranch Zin and some bloated bleach blonde from the bus that had just unloaded was grabbing the server’s arm to ask if she could get a discount if she bought two gallon jugs of something called (and I do recall this) “Monterey Nights Red” - it had stars on the label - instead of just one.

I did not mean to imply that all tasting room staff were robots working from a script intended to sell you wine. In fact many of them (especially in CA and OR and small BC wineries) I have come across were wine fans themselves and had interesting things to say about some of the wines, and that was a positive experience. The all too common version though, was the ones I have described when I started the thread. To give that sort of pourer their due, they probably don’t know that much about wine and they have to be seen doing something, even if it is reading off a script, pretending to know what they are talking about. But I still wish they would take suggestions to knock it off from tasters that don’t want to hear it all.

One other experience I had that bears repeating - I had made the mistake of setting up back to back meetings at Mouton and Margaux and had to rush to make the second one on time, not having taken into account the leisurely pace of many things French. We were slightly late to Margaux, which earned a raised nose from Madame who was hosting the tasting, and she only thawed out when I had asked some questions about the growing and vinification that revealed that I was a fellow wine geek, after which she talked to me and neglected the other couple who clearly were non-geeks.

Great advice. I’ll have to make sure to leave plenty of time in between visits the next time I see Margaux and Mouton on the same day. I’m sure we can all benefit from this.