Been doing winery visits for so long that I remember when we just tasted wine at a winery with a representative, then drove up to the one next door, no appointments. Now everyone has a sensory experience, seemingly trying to top one another. Is this to give the wine taster a more immersed feeling of the vineyard, to educate us on all of the work involved to make wine, or just a competition to get more visitors? Can’t decide if it was better or worse in the past…and this recent musing gave me an idea for this article.
Back in the day, maybe two or three decades ago, my husband and I would plan a trip to Napa, on a weekend (now Napa is far too busy for that so we go mid-week) and make no appointments except with the wineries we were members of. We simply started on one end of Highway 29 and pulled into one winery parking lot after the other until we got to the other end – which took a few days. We stood at their bars to taste their latest wines, made no notes, were offered crackers to cleanse our palates, and purchased whatever wines struck our fancy. Then onto the next winery.
Sometimes we did the Silverado Trail, sometimes we met people along the way that added new wineries to our list, sometimes we traveled with Ed’s sister Ann and our brother-in-law Jake or friends and went to the wineries they liked. I think that the “buzz” from others really drove us to explore more.
It was simple, easy, and…pretty quick. I think back then we probably tasted in at least five or six wineries a day (with a limousine driver that wanted to select the wineries for us, no thanks.) We’d always have lunch in between at a trendy restaurant or the Oakville market with sandwiches perched on our car hood as they hadn’t added their picnic areas back then.
Fast forward to today. I’ve had potato chip pairings, cave tastings, food pairings, patio tastings, live music/parties, private room tastings, outdoor tastings adjacent to bocce courts, downtown Napa tasting room visits, and lengthy seated tastings with winery owners and winemakers. I recently had a wine tasting along with the winemaker and the birds of prey they use in the vineyards.
Some tasting experiences seem to grow organically, but this may not be true because I had begun writing about wine so different types of experiences were being offered to me. The one time we went to Temecula we had an impromptu game of basketball at one winery with the family – that was definitely organic and before I was writing about it. In Sta. Rita Hills a winemaker offered his family home for our stay, and in Paso Robles we enjoyed exhilarating jeep tours of the vineyards with winemakers, and hours-long tastings in private cellars. (As my writing progressed, I’ve also had the most incredible and memorable winery visits in France, Greece, Germany, and Spain.)
The “experiences” have clearly grown. Each winery has been working so hard to up their game in an unspoken competition for your attention. But I have to ask, which is better: the quick visits where you could try a lot of wine in one day, or the long experiences that you could maybe do only two to three a day?
I honestly don’t know. I don’t have the answer. What I do think is that at some point wine tasting will reach a threshold. That the wines, that really do speak for themselves, won’t need such an impressive stage. What do you think?
Eve Bushman has a Level Two Intermediate Certification from the Wine and Spirits Education Trust (WSET), a “certification in the first globally-recognized course” as an American Wine Specialist ® from the North American Sommelier Association (NASA), Level 1 Sake Award from WSET, was the subject of a 60-minute Wine Immersion video (over 16k views), authored “Wine Etiquette for Everyone” and has served as a judge for the Proof Awards, Cellarmasters, LA Wine Competition, Long Beach Grand Cru and the Global Wine Awards. You can email Eve@EveWine101.com to ask a question about wine or spirits.
