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“A great wine education class. I was amazed by the instructor's wealth of knowledge, the great wines to taste and talk about, and the small, intimate class size. A fun way to learn a lot about wine.”

—Will, Ritchie Creek Vineyards

By Bruce Cass, excerpted from The Winewrights' Register

Winery Visitation Protocol

Vacation visits and day trips to wine growing regions are among the top tourist attractions in Oregon and in California. Millions of people do it annually. The opportunity to escape city pressures for a period of leisurely country driving is always a treat. Wineries offer a romantic entry to any region because they reflect seasonal change, the rhythm of the vineyards. They provide depth to anyone's experience of an area through their connection to history, climate, geology, economics, scientific advancement, art and society. Grape growing and winemaking can be hard manual labor, but the dollars involved lend an air of worthwhile gentlemanly pursuit to even the most primitive operations. Although one may encounter haughty pretension and bored indifference on occasion, the majority of winery personnel exude folksy charm and hospitality. Very few people come away from a winery visit without an increased sense of personal relationship to the product.

There are some basic differences between wineries however. Big wineries have facilities and a staff specifically designated to service visitors. Robert Mondavi, for instance, has more than 40 people engaged in hospitality alone at their Napa winery. Several large wineries feature top quality multi-media presentations. Others have excellent restaurants on their premises or double as art galleries. Many are furnished with antiques or built in dramatic architectural styles. Appointments are usually not necessary in these types of places. They are generally located along major routes of travel, and thus easy to find with any guidebook available throughout the region.

Micro-wineries are another story. In most cases one or two people do all the work. Entertaining visitors is time subtracted either from vineyard and winery chores or else from their family obligations. It is a tribute to the conviviality of the product that these wineries agree to host visitors at all. Making an appointment is more than a mere courtesy. The odds on finding someone home without an appointment are long. Many micro-wineries are very hard to locate, and some are virtually inaccessible to standard automobiles without special instructions. Do not be offended if these wineries decline to see you at your convenience. Some have restrictions on their licenses because their neighbors don't want to be bothered by a lot of traffic. I do research at tiny wineries all the time. If I call ten micro-wineries for appointments the next day, I'm likely to only reach five on the phone and then find two available to meet me for business. The plus side of this situation is that you eventually get to visit with an owner/winemaker instead of a professional public relations agent. The difference in knowledge and candor can be extraordinary. It justifies some preparation on the part of the visitor.

When attempting to make an appointment to visit a micro-winery keep the vintner's interests in mind. Their wine is not going to be one of the choices presented to you in the average liquor store or restaurant. Hence, they have little incentive to compete for your attention by pouring hefty doses of alcohol and approximating a party atmosphere the way larger wineries sometimes do. Beer drinkers who drop in off the highway for a few quick pops before dinner are not a market little wineries hope to penetrate. Micro-vintners want to focus their promotional time on that narrow segment of the population who seek out and appreciate rare, limited edition wines. So pre-qualify yourself over the phone. Mention that you entertain at home a lot or belong to a tasting group. Say that you are looking to discover wines for your cellar which can't be found in every neighborhood store. Remark that you gained your curiousity about the winery while taking a wine appreciation class or searching a wine portal on the Web.

At the same time, you should not treat small wineries like notches on the gun butt of life by overscheduling yourself. Leave the door open for serendipity. Nothing is more frustrating than having a winemaker take a shine to you and offer to open a bottle of his special sold-out award winner when you are already half an hour late for your next appointment. And that is exactly what will happen. First you will underestimate the driving distance between wineries. Then you will get lost. It happens to me every day, and I do this for a living. If you spend the entire day falling further and further behind schedule, you will not have fun and you will insult the principals of the wineries that have taken time off to see you. Wineries are more likely to give you an appointment if you imply the entire trip is being undertaken for the express purpose of seeing them. They're not naive, but everyone enjoys a little flattery. At most, you should seek one small winery appointment in the morning and one in the afternoon. It will be easy to fill in around these with stops that do not require appointments.

Word of caution #1. Touring wineries can be exhausting. Going to more than three in a day, or doing it for more than a couple days in a row, is work, not play. Members of your party will lose their sense of excitement after several ounces of wine and a few hours in the hot sun. You will enjoy yourself more, and stave off friendly revolution, if you gear the tour toward the least interested members of the group. Leave yourself the chance to stumble upon social and sporting events, or craft displays, or farmers' markets, or points of historical interest, or wildlife and nature areas. A visit to wine country should be an exercise in relaxation, not an application of the stamina that makes you a success in the business world to a subject which is essentially a hobby. Wine has wonderful connections to many other fields. Develop your capacity for curiosity and self-entertainment by exploring some of these tangents.

Word of caution #2. Think about your body ahead of time. It is possible to consume 30 ounces of wine at three wineries. One shudders to consider the condition of people who hit eight wineries, and then drive two hours to eat at an expensive restaurant in the nearest large city. Lethargy barely describes the symptoms experienced by most people around 3 p.m. when they fail to take precautions during a day full of wine tasting. If you want to be worth a damn at the end of your trip, you should plan on utilizing at least some of the following techniques:

• Spit the wines out. You will get the same organoleptic pleasure whether the wine exits your mouth through the front or the back. Most wineries are constructed with drains in the floor so they can be hosed down. Winemakers taste all day long by spitting wines out. Most of them will gain respect for your sophistication if you do the same. They will recognize your interest in taste over intoxication. Moreover, the ability to expectorate wine adroitly is impressive to anyone in the industry. It is like a secret fraternity grip. The idea is to maintain a tight pattern on the target. You can practice in the shower. The key is loose lips. While developing your expertise, you should probably plan on close proximity to the receptacle. In elegantly furnished tasting rooms, it may be wise to step outside and anoint some of the landscaping. Tell the gardener you are driving.
• Drink lots of water. After every wine sample, rinse your glass if water is available and consume the rinse water. Force yourself to drink a big glass of water in the morning. Do it again before going to bed. This technique will require you to locate restrooms more frequently than normal, but few winemakers equate bladder size with connoisseurship. Wineries are elaborately engineered pieces of plumbing to start with. They all have a loo. The alternative to this technique is a low-grade hangover and a mouth that feels like cotton candy by mid-afternoon. If you can supply your party with cold bottles of mineral water instead of sweet soda pop around 3 p.m., you will be the most popular person in the car.
• Eat food. Have breakfast even if you normally don't. Carry some bread and cheese to help remove the tannin from red wines which would otherwise build up in your mouth. Producing cold celery or apples at 3 pm will make you a hero.
• Get some exercise. Find a place to swim, or play tennis, or take a vigorous half hour walk. Concentrating on smell/taste sensations for long periods of time will make you feel tired, but your muscles will probably have been more quiescent than usual all day long. Doing something to get your blood moving will help metabolize alcohol out of your system. Unless your are extremely strong willed, it is prudent to make exercise plans ahead of time which will be hard to back out of. You will feel great after exercising, but you may be a little slow getting started.
• Take a short nap and a shower before dinner. When people realize they don't have to change into more formal clothes to eat in a fine wine region restaurant, they sometimes forego this break in the action. You should plan on taking it. The combination of sun, travel, meeting people, and attention to smell/taste sensations will take more out of you than you realize. Chances are good that dinner will present marvelous new sensations. Too many wine country visitors end up semi-conscious at precisely the point they spend the most money. You should call a recess from conviviality in the late afternoon to let everyone's mind sort through all the new input it has been receiving. Refreshed, you will enjoy the evening more and wake up the next day without that sneaking suspicion that some bulldozer has been working overtime in your hotel room.

Another difference between large wineries and small ones involves the way you should behave once you arrive. The professional hospitality staff at big wineries plans on directing the action. They have a prepared format and can not handle large numbers of people if they deviate from it very broadly. In short, your role is largely passive. At micro-wineries, the number of visitors is much smaller, and your host may only perform this function a couple of times per week. S/he is likely to spend most of the working day doing other winery jobs. Tour guides at big wineries deliver their presentation several times per hour, and their winery information has usually come from someone else. At micro-wineries you are expected to play a more active role than at big wineries, and you get more rewards for doing so.

Sometimes this distinction in roles is subtle, but it is accurate nonetheless. Too many tourists think that a winery is a winery, and therefore all winery representatives will adopt the same position in a group interaction. These tourists should content themselves with visiting big wineries who present a show in exchange for the right to deliver a commercial massage. The roles there are analogous to those when you stroll into an automobile showroom. A visit to a micro-winery, however, is more analogous to someone granting you an interview in their home. They have not agreed to provide cake and cookies. They do expect you to have a nodding acquaintance with the subject, and they assume you will want to direct the conversation toward your specific areas of interest. Many of them won't even bother with the canned pitch of generalities if you indicate your background knowledge and areas of interest right away. Do this with a probing question. Don't fall into the trap of monopolizing the conversation with longwinded recitations of well known wines you've tasted and wineries you've visited. Mention one or two wines you particularly like (as opposed to expensive brands you think you should like) and a winery that is doing something unique you find interesting.

Here are three lines of inquiry which can help get you started:

• Is there a particular style the winemaker shoots for in ... (choose a grape variety they produce)? When and where do they pick grapes to accomplish it? Any special viticultural techniques? What winemaking methods enhance that style? Have they changed styles over the years?
• Do they have a significant track record with this particular wine or grape variety? How does this wine change in the bottle? What have they noticed as differences from vintage to vintage?
• How did they (as an individual) come to be doing what they're doing?

Most micro-vintners will employ an impressive depth of technical understanding and considerable personal flair to provide wonderful insights if you merely indicate a sincere interest. One way to do that is to take notes, and perhaps some pictures. If you are invited to taste wine, it is almost incumbent upon you to take some written notes. Failure to do so implies that you are not putting as much into the event as your host is. You are not necessarily expected to buy wine. Micro-vintners realize that their wine is not going to benefit from several days cruising around in the trunk of your car at 150°F. However, you should do your host the courtesy of inquiring about how wines may be purchased in the future.

Self-sufficiency is the key to good times when visiting small wineries. A minimal amount of equipment will give you the imprimatur of experience, will avoid placing annoying pressure on others, and will open up many opportunities for spontaneity which you might otherwise turn down.

• Shoes. Not only should they be comfortable, but they should be able to withstand walking in dusty vineyards and on wet winery floors. Save the fashion statement for dinner in the evening.
• Sweater, hat. From May through September a region such as California can get extremely hot on the inland side of the coastal mountains. Having a hat available will make you more comfortable when you get a chance to do something where shade is hard to come by. At the same time, winery interiors are often kept below 60°F by insulation and jacketed fermenting tanks. Carry a sweater or light windbreaker which you can put on and take off without commotion so you don't have to leave every cellar after fifteen minutes. Your sweater may also come into play unexpectedly if you drive to the coast or when evening falls. Visitors to California are always surprised by these 40°F temperature shifts.
• Wine glasses. Since it is a virtual necessity to have a car, why not stick a couple small wine glasses into the trunk. You can bring them from your hotel room wrapped in a towel if you fly in empty handed. All these do is give you the ability to drink fine wine when and where you want without having to resort to plastic tumblers. At home you always drink wine in locations where glasses are available, or where tasting it is not necessarily the idea. The wine country is going to present opportunities you don't encounter at home.
• Corkscrew. See wine glasses above.
• Knife. It doesn't have to be a weapon. A paring knife will do. The idea is to be able to cut bread, cheese and salami without having to rediscovery stone age technology. Putting it in the glove compartment will make group compromises on the subject of what constitutes an acceptable picnic much more possible.
• Pen. If you carry it, you will take notes. If you have to look for it when you want it, you won't.
• Map. Phone booths are sometimes hard to come by when you are lost in rural country. Cross roads may be ten miles apart. It is also much easier to follow directions over the phone if you are looking at a map. Buy a regional road map for $3.00 in any mini-grocery or service station. Tourist wine guides can give you addresses, phone numbers and relative locations, but their maps are often artists' renditions which ignore scale and important roads. Having a regional road map will alert you to many points of curiosity the wine guides miss.

Being invited to taste wine at a micro-winery is also different than at a large winery. You want to minimize the glassware that has to be brought into play. Consider ways in which you can compare two wines side-by-side by selecting a healthy partner and sharing glasses. If invited to taste wines from the barrel, be prepared to step forward quickly as the wine is taken out of the barrel. Wine thieves are difficult to manipulate between the barrel and your glass because they drip, and that can attract fruit flies if not wiped up.

Wines in barrel are not meant to be compared to bottled wines. Many vintners hesitate to show wines out of the barrel to novices for this reason. Reds will usually be fairly tannic. So take your time and swirl them around vigorously to introduce lots of air. The nose of these wines will seem subdued. Concentrate more on their aftertaste for an indication of how they will develop in the bottle. Winemakers are interested in your reaction. They want to know that you are concentrating your attention on the wine for a few minutes. Pick out the characteristic which you find most noticeable and remark on it. You need not say that you like it, and you probably shouldn't announce that you don't like it. But you want to demonstrate how it fits in with your experience. Mention wines that you think are similar, especially if they are highly regarded or more expensive. Comment on whether you could enjoy the wine now with a certain dish, or would rather keep it in your cellar for future development. Remark on the relationship between two of the wines that you are tasting by saying, "#1 seems softer" or "#2 seems fruitier."

Finally, realize that it is your role to conclude the proceedings in a timely and gracious fashion. Give winemakers plenty of opportunity to accept your departure without having to initiate the subject themselves. Pretend that you are a guest in their home. Feel free to accept any and all hospitality that is offered, but don't stand around waiting for the big finale that usually comes at the end of a large winery hospitality tour (right before the invitation to visit the gift shop on your way out). Remember, at micro-wineries you are the active party. Failure to recognize a polite conclusion may imply that you expect something which has not been freely offered. Having given generously of their time, the principals at tiny wineries might understandably resent such an implication. The time a micro-vintner spends with you is much more valuable than the profit they might make on selling you a couple bottles of wine. It doesn't make financial sense, but artistic wine is often their passion more than their business.