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What Happens in a Winery Tasting Room?
Posted by
Amanda on 1/5/10
If you have never been to a winery and enjoyed their tasting room, you may be in for a surprise. This article will guide you through the way in which most tasting rooms operate and what you can expect.
In most cases, wine tasting rooms operate in the same way, however, once in awhile you will stumble upon a new character. When you enter the vineyard, you will walk to the tasting room where a staff member will greet you. The wine tasting room can be in the cellar or any other designated area around the vineyard. In the wine tasting room, you will need to walk up to the tasting bar and ask to taste their wines. You may have to pay in order to taste the wineries creations, some wineries do not charge while other do. In many cases, if you pay to taste the wine, you will receive a complimentary souvenir glass. The staff member will give you a list of the wines so you can choose the ones you wish to taste. Some wineries allow you to taste each and every wine they create while others may only allow a specific amount of wines.
The best way to enjoy and experience a winery tasting room is by allowing the consultant to guide you in your tasting. The consultants at the winery will pour the wine while explaining what aroma and taste you will be experiencing. Other staff members will ask what you notice about the wines as you are sampling. This does not occur with each wine, but is an added treat when you can be included in the wine tasting. Asking tasters their opinion can be very embarrassing especially if the taster is not a connoisseur.
The experience you may have differs quite a bit as to the time you are visiting the tasting room. Visiting on a less busy day such as in the middle of the week is the best time to visit if you want to linger and learn more about the wine, winery, and vineyards. The staff members that are in charge of pouring the wine in the majority of cases, are very knowledgeable about the wine, however, on the weekends when the wineries are very busy you may find the pourer is only there to help. This is another good reason to be sure and visit during slow times of the week, if you want to learn more anything at all about the wine.
Most tasting rooms will have what is called a tasting bar with or without bar stools. Some wineries offer a table for sitting inside of a tasting bar. In a few wineries, you will also be given a treat of a few snack food items that you can munch on while partaking of the wines.
The idea of visiting a winery and partaking of their wares is often a tour of the vineyard, a tour of the winemaking process, and of course, the enjoyment of tasting the various wines created at the winery. The advice from wine connoisseurs is to limit the number of tasting rooms you visit in one day to no more than three. The main reason this is true is that you want to savor the aroma and flavor once you begin tasting so many different wines, they will begin to blend together, and you will not experience their uniqueness taste.
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