How many ounces is the average sample of wine at a vineyard?!
How many ounces is the average sample of wine at a vineyard?
One of my relatives is going to a wine tour today and she is going to have 45 samples of wine total. Will she come home completely wasted?
Answers:
The purpose of a wine tasting is to learn about and experience many wines at one time, not to get your freak on!
An experienced taster will
Swirl the glass
Take a sniff
Take a deeper sniff
Swirl again
Put a small amount to their lips
Take a short sip
Enjoy the full experience as the liquid goes from front to back of their palate
Ingest a very small amount
Spit out the remainder
(Repeat if necessary)
Dump the rest of the wine in their glass into a waste bucket
Rinse the glass - (a fresh glass would be best, but is usually not practical)
Clear their palate
Move on to the next one
Actually drinking ALL the wine in the glass defeats the whole purpose. The more wine you ingest the more you impair your senses and the less information gather about the wines you are tasting!
Even at an only ounce 45 glasses would be nearly 2 whole bottles or 10 normal glasses of wine, so if she drank all of the samples completely down as some novices will do she would be completely sloshed, and probably wouldn't even remember what wines she tasted let alone anything about them.
Furthermore, since most wine tastings are about the wine ... not food ... there will probably be a very poor selection of appetizers or maybe a few crackers or maybe no food at all. In which case ingesting a significant quantity of wine on an empty stomach would make one very sick or very drunk or both.
Movie scenes like the one with Goldie Hawn in Private Benjamin where she is swilling whole glasses one after another in the French winery cellar and getting totally blotto might have seemed funny to some ignorant film writer, but have as much to do with wine tasting as a movie style car chase has to driving to work in the morning.
I went wine tasting a few weeks ago and I'd say I probably got between an ounce and two ounces of wine for each tasting. 45 tastes is a TON, and I think that at bigger places like that, you're not expected to down the whole sample. You smell it, get a good sip, enjoy it, and if it's very good and you really want to, drink the rest, but if it's just okay or you don't like it, there are containers for you to pour it out. I can't imagine her drinking 45 ounces of wine though! That would be nearly 10 servings. She should stick to small sips if she really wants to enjoy all of her wine-tasting adventure without getting sick or loopy.
ya she will. that's a lot of alcohol! you aren't supposed to drink to the WHOLE sample though, but i mean come on...most go to party! :)
most places in napa do any thing from a 1 to 5 ounce pour depending on the winery. On ething your relative should be aware of is that it is OK to pour it out. You are not obligated to drink the entire thing that is served to you.
I once went to a zinfandel tasting in San Francisco with over 200 wines and if I had swallowed everything I tasted, I would not have made it home. Be sure that the relative eats throughout the day and has water to prevent dehydration.