Good Grape Wine Company

July 20 2006

Working at a Tasting Room Would be Great if it Weren’t for the Customers!

The blog Grape Juice has a good post on what makes for agood tasting room experience.  Part I of II, with the second part coming ...

Having visited a dozen or so tasting rooms in the lastweek, this is particularly timely—and the author, Erin, leads off the post witha spot-on accurate assessment of tasting rooms that need to have a touch ofcustomer service.

Last week while in Paso, at what will remain an unnamedwinery, my buddy and I both saddled up to the tasting bar—we were there with another couple being addressed by another employee—so the crowd was a manageable four people to two employees.  This was a smallwinery about 10 years old and about 7000 total cases of production across anumber of varietals. Awards wereplentiful, according to the plaques and ribbons displayed.

Wewere there based specifically on a recommendation of my friend’s good friend—anoenophile himself with noted good taste and a lover of a blend this wineryspecialized in.

Whilein Paso, I had tasted a Viognier at Edna Valley that had distinct, overt notesof orange zest on the finish—it was an appealing characteristic that added somezing to a varietal that I enjoy.

Whileat this unnamed winery, I noticed similar orange notes in their Viognier andmade the observation that I was picking up some orange notes since the tastingguy was staring at me expectedly. Ifollow the rule that other wineries don’t want to chit chat about your othervisits, so I mentioned nothing of the other Viognier as a reference point—justthat I was getting pleasant orange notes on the finish.

Hewas a guy that looked like a teacher that had put his 25 years in at a schoolsystem and retired to the tasting room, but had never lost the hang-dog worldweariness that teaching can exact from you—as if he had traded having to deal with kids for having to deal withadults—and both were a nuisance that required paying a pound of flesh.

 His response to my observation was to not so subtlety correct myMidwestern “vion-yay” pronunciation to the apparently more correct“vee-ohn-YAY”—the difference between a long "o" and a short "o."  And then he let me know that he had the wine with dinner lastnight and he hadn’t picked up any orange notes “AT ALL.”

All right, then.  I’m the idiot.

Whenmy buddy said, “I’ve heard great things about the <inset winery specialtywine>.  Can you tell me about it?" The response was, “What wouldyou like to know?”

Itdevolved from there … their stellar wine, and what they are known for, wastight and taut. When my friend gave ita “Interesting” upon the guys expectant gaze, he remarked that the bottleneeded some air—pronouncing at least 24 hours as a good decanting period oftime and that the wine showed much better after three days of air.

Decantfor 24 hours? Better after threedays?

Whenwe sampled a Zin that had 15.9% alcohol, we got the, “most people that knowabout wine look at it as exceptionally balanced.” I took this as a direct slap.Acutally, he was half right, the wine would have been balanced if it had been aPort.

Whilethis experience, overall, wasn’t completely unpleasant, the tasting staffperson’s personality and churlishness did add a sour note to the visit—the onlyone of 12 wineries we visited that I wouldn’t visit again.

Checkout the post at Grape Juice and see if you don’t agree that personality andbedside manner matters when tasting wine.

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