This one begins with a shout out to our friends at the Pasadena Enterprise Car Rental office, mostly because it was Tanya whose question suggested this post.
You see, Tanya and Anne were chatting about wine tasting. Tanya had recently been up to Malibu and we’d just gotten back from a weekend in Santa Barbara and Lompoc. And Tanya was a little surprised when Anne said she’d been spitting a good part of the weekend.
Okay, spitting your wine out after you’ve just tasted it does sound really gross. It’s not that bad, especially if you remember to bring a small cup to spit into (like we forgot, oops). Or you can just taste some of the wine and pour the rest out into the spit or dump bucket that should be on the tasting room counter, which relieved Tanya no end. She was thinking it was rude to not drink what you were poured.
The thing it’s not at all rude to pour or spit your wine out. Because the bottom line is that while wine tastes really good, it can also get you plenty drunk, or if you have Anne’s tummy, really sick. And if you’re having a good time with friends, it’s easier than you might think to get a snootful. If you pour or spit, no one is going to think you don’t like the wine (even if, perhaps, you don’t). Folks are just going to think you don’t want to get drunk, and the folks behind the counter in the tasting room are seriously down with that.
Drunks are no fun to deal with – one of the reasons we prefer to avoid party weekends or wineries with multiple limos parked outside. In fact, on of the rudest things you can do in a tasting room is let yourself get polluted. So pour or spit. You’ll be fine and able to taste that much more wine, too.