How to Taste Wine at a Local Wine Festival

If this Sommelier were to attend a local Wine Festival, the following is how I would approach tasting at such an event. (The Naperville Wine Festival is near…) http://www.napervillewinefestival.com/


Sommeliers taste wine to objectively assess wine for quality and faults. We are trained to put our personal tastes aside. Since this is a fun and entertaining tasting, I would taste the wines I enjoy. Observing several hundred wines in the program, I would first walk the entire event, discovering all of the offerings, styles, and wines represented. I would decide which wines I am really excited about. I always taste these first. Your tongue and mouth are mussels, and tasting many wines will make you mentally and physically exhausted. The reality is you’re not going to be able to taste all of the wines. Don’t rush, less is more!  Quality always over quantity.

In a restaurant or trade tasting, I always taste white wines first, reds second, and dessert wines last. Sommeliers are trained to speed taste. The reality of a wine festival is the wines are spread across a vast area and this is not pragmatic to taste in the aforementioned order. I make sure I have a bottle of water with me to cleanse my palate between tastes. This also comes in handy to rinse your tasting glass between wines. Utilize the spit buckets! You don’t want to alter your state of mind to effectively taste wine. I always carry a pen and note the wines that I enjoy in the program listings.  Take lots of notes to remember what you tasted.

Your tasting companions should be friends that are open minded and there to learn, enjoy, be in good conversation, and taste wine. Keep groups small if possible. If your companions are going because they want to get inebriated, tell them to stay home or go elsewhere. The romance, mystique, and pleasure of wine are destroyed with such dubious characters. They are going for the wrong reasons. (This is why many wineries and tasting rooms out west have started to post signs saying No Limos or Groups Above 6.)

Start conversations with winemakers and/or winery representatives. I am always curious about the back stories of the wines. How are they made? How did the winery get started? How are the vineyards managed? What is the terrior or climate like? I always ask the winemaker how the wine should be served…they all have a different answer! I always like to get firsthand accounts and usually extract some great stories.

At regional wine events, there are usually many regional wineries. A lot of these wines are fermented with local berries and hybrid grapes (vignoles, chardonel, norton, etc). Most of them are of poor quality. (Taste sugary sweet, like diesel fuel, etc.) I am always polite when tasting them, but am usually spitting them out immediately. I always go in with an open mind. Sometimes you do taste something good, but usually for every fifty wines you taste, only one is good. This is how I discover wines from off the beaten path. Some may find it strange, but I taste everything because I want to understand why it is not palatable. Maybe it’s too acidic, sweet, or bitter. It could be disjointed, flabby, flat, and not in balance. These elements need to sing in harmony.

Happy Tasting!