Category: Wine Tasting Tips

There is little question that climate change is affecting wine making around the world.  Champagne is reporting the earliest harvests in history.  Bordeaux has allowed six new grapes (two whites and four reds) to be included in their wines because of the difficulties encountered in growing the traditional ones.  Drought plus exceptional heat waves have affected the growing season in northern California. 

Only time will tell how that will affect what we wine lovers will find in our glasses from the 2026 and later harvests.  We shouldn’t just jump to the conclusion that it will be worse.  Perhaps ingenious winemakers will create wines that are more robust and are drinkable sooner.  Of course, we also must be prepared for thinner, more acidic wines from these years.

But how does the change in the climate affect the pleasant avocation of visiting Wine Country and tasting wine at the wineries?  There are several answers.

• Those who enjoy being in Wine Country for the crush will need to travel earlier in the year.  If, for example, they want to be in Champagne to watch grapes being picked, transported and crushed, they will have to be there in late July or early August, rather than September as in the past.  That means traveling in periods of peak heat.  How hot could that be?  The peak temperature in Champagne this summer was 104^oF (40^oC).  That’s enough to make any trip unforgettable, but not in a good way.
• It may be more crowded.  Despite the temperature, many people do take their vacations in mid-summer.  That’s when school is out and families can travel.  This is especially true in France, where Parisians leave town for the whole month of August to travel south.  Maybe they will head north in the future, but who can tell?
• Even September can be very hot.  Europe experienced several exceptional heat waves in 2026.  Even in September, temperatures in Bordeaux and Tuscany reached into the mid- to high 90’s (Fahrenheit).  So that period of time that used to be the best for visiting these locales has the worst of both worlds: high temperatures and grapes already picked.
• Maybe stick to the premier American wine tasting.  Yes, California had higher than usual temperatures in many regions, but summers in the Wine Country of that state have always been hot.  Maybe heat is built into the way vineyard managers have always grown grapes.  Temperatures have moderated at summer’s end…this year.  It would be wise in future years to check weather conditions, even in the US.
• We may have to adjust.  If climate change accelerates, we all may be drinking Norwegian Cabernet Sauvignon!  Or maybe we’ll start to learn our lessons and start being smarter about how we use energy to lower the heat.  In the meantime, growers and winemakers will continue to do the best they can.

The servers in a tasting room are, de facto, the faces of the winery.  They explain the background of the label, the vineyard(s) and often the owners.  In Europe, there is often a distinguished history of both wines and nobles that goes back centuries; the serve seems like little more than a vassal.  In the US, especially in California, ancient history often began in 1976, so the current ownership gets more attention.  What you don’t hear much about is the winemakers for that winery.

From our point of view, the winemakers are the stars of the show.  They are the ones who actually create what winds up in our glasses and in many cases they oversee the growth of the grapes that made the wine.  For the most part, they are behind the scenes for actual tastings.  But on occasion, the winemaker happens to be in the room or, in the case of smaller wineries, he or she is also the owner and the server, as well as the lead salesperson and the bookkeeper.

If you should happen to meet a winemaker, the conversation might be limited to “I like your wine” and “Thank you”.  But such a meeting is a rare learning opportunity.  You should really make the most of it in the few minutes you’re likely to have.

• A little praise goes a long way.  The winemakers don’t often have direct customer feedback, so if you can say more than the fact that you liked their wine, their ears will perk up.  For example, if you can truthfully say, “We opened your 2018 Pinot Noir last week and it’s drinking real well, with heavy raspberry flavors” the person who made it will be rightly appreciative.  That will open the door for a more in-depth conversation.
• If you’re just discovering their wines, discuss what you’re tasting at that moment.  A simple question such as, “How do you think this Merlot will change with age” will indicate that you’re interested in learning and might lead to a sale.  You should get a fairly detailed answer. 
• Modern winemakers love sustainability.  Climate change and water shortages are threats to their profession, so they are all becoming ecologists.  If you ask what they are doing to sustain their vines and deal with changed weather conditions, you’re likely to get a brief lecture on the subject.
• Ask for recommendations.  Especially in the US, winemakers may be responsible for a wide range of red and white wines.  They are all their babies, and it would be a little rude to ask which of their wines they prefer.  But asking which wines are the best values or the best years for a certain grape indicate that you want to buy some.  And it lets them speak to the specifics of what they have created, not the generalities.
• It shouldn’t have to be said, but be polite.  If you don’t care for the Sauvignon Blanc, you’d better keep it to yourself.  And there’s no reason for you, an amateur, to be giving your opinion on any winemaking issues you may have to a trained professional.

We never studied geology in school.  It just seemed boring: rocks, rocks and more rocks.  Okay, it’s a noble science but it wasn’t our thing.  So we guess we missed the lessons about how the type of soil affects the taste and aroma of wine.  The lectures would have been okay; but we’re really sorry not to have done the lab work.

Now, when we go wine tasting, we don’t get down on our knees and run our fingers through the dirt.  Since we skipped the class, we wouldn’t know what we were looking at anyway.  But we have learned that there are some general characteristics of certain soils in different regions – or within a region – that differentiate one wine from another.  It’s not that one is better or worse than another, which is a matter of taste, but it adds to our pleasure in tasting wine to know where it came from. 

If you’d like, here are some tips.

• Get the lay of the land.  Start with understanding that softer soils produce softer wines and stonier, harder ones have more flavors that come from the rocks.   Limestone and chalk are in the ground beneath the vines of Champagne; is there any softer wine?  Sandy soil or sandstone creates lighter colors and less tannins.  At the other extreme, where once there were volcanos, or where pressure created schist or slate, wines are dense and contain a lot of mineral and fruity flavors. 
• Find out what kind of soil is predominant where you are going.  For example, the land south of the city of Bordeaux is full of gravel (hence the wines are Graves), which is little stones.  To the east, clay and limestone predominate in the soil of St. Emilion.  Think about it: Which of those wines are softer on the palate?  In St. Chinian, the vineyards to the north are made of schist and are big and bold, while those to the south are of limestone and are much softer and rounder.  California is big, so there are a lot of different types of soils.  But in the prime locales of Napa Valley and Sonoma County, it’s likely to be rocky on the hillsides (naturally) and sandier in the valleys.  For those who can distinguish between mountain and benchland wines, that’s a big part of the reason.
• Ask your server.  In many countries in Europe, there are rules about what you can grow, where you can grow it and which grapes can be used are very strict.  So the soil will be very specific to individual vineyards.  American winemakers have more latitude.  Many California wines, for example, are made from single vineyards and it’s interesting to know what the underlying soil is like.  Even more so, when winemakers blend juice made from grapes grown in different vineyards, they are trying to balance exactly the tastes and aromas of the different soil types.  Your server ought to know how the soils affect the wines.  If he or she pleads ignorance, try to get an answer from someone more knowledgeable.
• See if there’s a soil display.  Many wineries, in California and elsewhere, have displays of the different types of soil where they grow grapes.  Take advantage of it and try to make the connection to the wines you taste.  Again, a server who is an educator should be able to help you understand.

Wine tasting at the most exclusive wineries everywhere has long been on the basis of “By Appointment Only”.  This applies to areas as widely spread as Napa Valley, Bordeaux and Tuscany.  In the Piemonte, specifically relating to the wineries in Barolo and Barbaresco, they have never been open for casual passers-by to stop in for a taste of their wines.  At one point, there were no organized tastings at all in the Piemonte; you got to try a few wines if you were in the trade or were a friend of the owner.

By the 1990’s wine tasting tourism had taken off around the world and Piemonte had become a destination region based on the quality of their wines.  But the wineries themselves were – and for the most part, still are – small, family owned businesses that are in the wine business, not tourism.  Serving visitors has become a profitable sideline, but no more than that.  To control the distraction from their main business of winemaking and to contain labor costs, almost all wine tasting in the Piemonte is strictly by appointment.  And the tastings can be quite costly.

Here are some tips to get the most out of a Piemonte visit, while working through the appointments.

• Do some homework.  This has long been advice given by Power Tasting, for wine tasting anywhere.  But many Americans, even knowledgeable wine tasters, are not that familiar with specific Barolo and Barbaresco wineries, so some prior research is called for.  Find out which wineries make quality wines and offer tastings that fit your budget.  Then get on their web sites and make your appointments.
• Don’t over-plan.  Realistically, you can only visit one winery per day.  That’s because almost every tasting includes a tour as well.  These visits take at least an hour and half.  But there are only a limited number of tours in English.  So unless you’re fluent in Italian, there’s only one or two times you can visit.
• Use the rest of your time wisely.  Have lunch in the village.  Visit a castle.  Sit in a wine bar and sample the wines of whatever village you’re in.  Enjoy the incredible views.  Who knows when you’ll ever be in the Piemonte again; enjoy it while you’re there.

• Take advantage of the exceptions.  There are a few opportunities for wine tasting without an appointment.  In the village of Barolo, there’s a tasting room of the Borgogno winery where you can just come in and order their wines by the glass.  (Borgogno also offers tasting tours.)  In the little village of La Morra, which also offers spectacular panoramic vistas of the Barolo vineyards, there’s the cooperative, called the Cantina Communale de La Morra.  There’s a huge selection of lesser-known Barolos and other wines to try.
• Try your luck.  You can knock on the door of a winery, look very apologetic and say that you don’t have an appointment but you’d like to try their wine.  You never know, they might pour you a little.  It worked for us, at least once.

Let’s assume that you’re going wine tasting with another person, someone whose taste in wine you respect.  You’re fond of that person, maybe that person is your partner in life.  Most of the time you agree about the quality of the wine you drink, but on occasion in a winery’s tasting room, you disagree.

Now as friends and lovers, you probably don’t need advice from Power Tasting about how to disagree amiably.  But there are some aspects of disagreements that are unique to wine tasting.  Disagreements can be learning experiences for all those involved.

• Is the wine bad? We’re not talking about the relative quality of the wine the two of you might be tasting.  We’re suggesting that a wine may have turned or is corked.  Corked wine, in particular, is a common problem, more so than is generally recognized, although it seems it occurs in fewer bottles in recent years.  One may recognize the problem and the other not, so that might be the first question to consider if one of you is immediately turned off by a sip of wine because you feel that wine is corked.
• What if one of you likes a wine, and the other doesn’t.  This is where respect for the other’s taste comes into play.  It may simply be a stylistic difference.  One likes oaky, buttery California Chardonnays.  The other prefers classic French Chablis, made from the same grape but tasting very different.  The best idea is to recognize the underlying difference in a particular wine, while recognizing that there are some unoaked Chardonnays from California and some very fruity Chablis from Burgundy.
• What does it taste like?  You both lift a glass of, say, Zinfandel.  One tastes cherries when sipping it.  The other is sure that the dominant flavor is dark chocolate.  It’s amazing how suggestions alter perceptions.  All of a sudden, when they mention their impressions, the cherries come through to one and the chocolate to the other.  You both realize that what you smell is chocolate-covered cherries.  Now, that’s a bit of an exaggeration but the point is valid.  Consider what the other is smelling and tasting and your senses may begin to respond in the same way.
• What does the winemaker say?  One of the niceties of wine is that you can often read the winemaker’s opinion about aromas and tastes on the back of a bottle.  (You can also find other people’s opinions on some restaurants’ lists and in critics’ commentary.  But we’re talking about what you can do in a tasting room.)  To be honest, we often find some of those comments to be ridiculous.  Every time we read about road tar or pencil shavings, we grimace.  But if one of you tastes plums and the other doesn’t, the winemaker can be a tie-breaker.
• De gustibus non disputandem est.  The ancient Romans had it right: There’s no arguing taste.   And it may be that one person is actually incapable of tasting what the other does.  For example, the smell of white pepper is a known characteristic of Syrah.  But according to Decanter magazine, more than 20% of the population don’t have the taste receptors to detect the chemical that imparts that peppery taste.

As we have said before, disagreements about wine tasting are often a learning experience which we should take advantage of.

Over the years that we have been involved in wine tasting, there’s one thing we can say for sure: It has gotten a lot more expensive.  On our earliest trips, tastings were free and you got to take the glass home with you.  These days, the fees for the opportunity to sip top-tier wines can run into the hundreds of dollars per person. 

There are several reasons why this is reprehensible, even if it is necessary for the financial health of the wineries.  For one thing, there doesn’t seem to be any correlation between the cost of the wines being served and the fees charged to taste them.  If a bottle of “elite” wine costs, for instance, $100 then why does a chance to try four or five small pours – equivalent to about a glass – cost $125?  We think it’s more a snob effect: Charge a lot and keep out the riff-raff.  But they are also keeping out visitors eager to learn about fine wine as well as people with educated taste but more meager pocketbooks.

For those unwilling to pay the big bucks, there are alternatives that provide plenty of interesting wine tasting but don’t require a second mortgage to indulge in them.  We term these “value” tastings.

• Take the least expensive option offered in the tasting room.  They say you should buy the worst house in the best neighborhood you can afford.  The same may apply to wine tasting.  For example, Beringer, a winery that we have enjoyed greatly over the years, charges $150 to sample the best of their current and library wines.  But they also have tours and tastings that range from as low as $35.  You won’t sip the best on the less expensive tastings, but you won’t get plonk either.
• Or try the opposite approach.  There are occasions where the best house in a lesser neighborhood works just fine.  And there are wineries that don’t have the same cachet as the biggest names in the valley but are capable of making some better quality wines.  Many of these are only available at the tasting room, so you can take advantage of them while you are there. 
• Manage your expectations.  If you enter the tasting room looking forward to an exceptional wine adventure at a low price, you’re likely to be disappointed.  But if you anticipate some good wine served in a pleasant environment by knowledgeable people, you will likely have a good time.
• Ask a lot of questions.  If you are a newbie to wine tasting, the questions will probably be rather elementary, which is just fine.  A decent server will use the opportunity to explain some basics about wine making, different varietals and how to get the most pleasure out of a glass of wine.  On the other hand, if you have some experience and are interested in gaining knowledge, the server may just discover a little bit of some better wines that just happen to be open and give you some little extras.

Artificial Intelligence seems to be everywhere these days, so why not for wine tasting?  The one thing AI doesn’t have and never will is taste, in both senses of the word.  Chatbots can’t taste wine and even if they could, they don’t have the good taste to tell the difference between fine wine and plonk.  They can only provide information from what has been written about wine, not the beverage itself.

Photo courtesy of Wine Industry Sales Education.

Nonetheless, it can be a helpful tool if someone is planning or is actually on a wine tasting trip.  Here are some tips that we have taken advantage of in our wine tasting adventures.

• AI can suggest places to visit.  This is particularly helpful if you are planning on tasting in a region of Wine Country where you’ve never been before or, even more so, if you know little or nothing about the wines made there.  There’s no reason to let ChatGPT or Gemini determine where you should go, but they can shorten the time to get started in selecting wineries to visit.
• Be careful what you ask.  It all depends on the prompts you enter.  If you ask, “What are the best wineries in Bordeaux?” you’ll be directed to the Premier Crus and their equivalents.  That’s good advice, as long as you don’t mind the expense of only visiting the top wineries.  If you ask “What are the best wineries for wine tasting in Bordeaux?” you’ll get a different list, still very fine wines to try, but less exclusive.  And if you enter the prompt “What are the best values for money in wineries for wine tasting in Bordeaux?” you’ll be offered still another list of châteaux.  All in all, it pays to think about what you want to do and be specific in your requests.
• Don’t trust the answers you get.  Or at least, don’t trust them blindly.  AI chatbots have the nasty habit of just making things up.  If the reply that you get mentions a winery you’re familiar with, all well and good.  But if it’s a name you never heard of, that may be because it doesn’t exist.  So go from the chatbot to the web sites of the recommended wineries and both verify the accuracy of the AI response and learn more about a potential visit.
• Don’t rely on just one AI tool.  Each one has a different algorithm and data model, so you’ll get different answers from Claude than from CoPilot than from Grok…  It isn’t that one is more dependable than the others; it’s just that they’re different.  It’s just like asking two friends for recommendations.  They’re unlikely to be exactly the same.  But note the recommended wineries that come up on multiple chatbots.  That’s indicative that a particular winery will be a good destination.
• And you can ask it about lunch after the tasting.  If you don’t know about wines in a given area, you probably don’t know about restaurants, either.  All the tips above apply. If you choose one, AI can give you driving instructions from a tasting room to a café.
  
  

As mentioned elsewhere in this issue, we often buy wine to take home when we go wine tasting.  It seems like a simple proposition: We try it; we like it; we buy it.  But in fact, there’s more that goes into the decision.  If you, like us, are looking to purchase some wine on your trips, here are a few things to consider.

• Can you find it in wine shops near your home?  There’s no point in lugging bottles around on a vacation or paying to ship them if you can just walk around the corner and buy the same wines.  It’s more likely that lower-priced, mass-production wines will be available locally than top-end wines, even from the same producer.  If you’re not sure, look up the web site of your favorite store or call them.  You can also use an application such as winesearcher.com to find out if that wine is sold near you.
• Are you a member of the winery’s club?  One of the advantages of joining a wine club is that you get free tastings at the winery.  Since we know we’ll enjoy the wines they serve (or we never would have joined in the first place) we generally take them up on the offer.  But why buy wines that you know will be shipped to us a few months hence?  That’s particularly true of wines that are restricted for sale only to members.
• Is the wine only available in the tasting room?  We have found that some producers that sell their wines widely also give their winemakers the chance to make a low-production wine from the best grapes reserved each year for that purpose.  The amount made is so low that they can’t even send it to all their members and only make it available to visitors.  So if you like it, you may want to take advantage of being there at the right time for a special deal.
• Do you enjoy the wine as it is?  This seems like a silly question, but wine changes over time.  For example, we prefer to age fine wine from Bordeaux for at least eight years from the vintage.  If we’re tasting in that region, we know the wines offered to us will be young and nowhere near the peak quality that gives the label it’s reputation.  So we buy on the wines’ potential.  We use the clef du vin to get an idea of what it’s going to be.
• Do you have the patience (and the place) to age your purchases?  If not, hesitate to buy wines that demand time.  You might forego Cabernet Sauvignons in favor of Zinfandels that are often at their best a few years from the time the grapes were picked.  As a general rule, white wines need less cellaring than reds, so for example if you find a Chenin Blanc that really appeals to you, buy that instead the same winery’s Syrah.

A major part of Power Tasting’s mission is to empower wine tasters from being intimidated when they visit wineries.  For some people we’ve met, the most intimidating aspect of wine tasting is asking questions of their servers about the wines they’re being served (and the ones they’re not being served), winemaking practices, the vineyards and so many other topics that make the study of wine so interesting.  Some are fearful of seeming ignorant and, at the other extreme, of sounding too snobbish.  But how are you to learn without asking for more information?

So here are a few tips on how to ask questions at a winery.

• Age is a factor, as is the question.  It’s really a matter of context.  A young adult, just of legal age to consume alcohol, can ask very basic questions without worry.  If that person asks, “What makes some wine red and others white”, any server with a conscience should give a simple but thorough answer. An older person might get a sidewise glance!   There are things that a 21-year old can do that a 41-year old can’t.  But you already knew that.
• Only ask questions to gain information you don’t have.  If the intent is to show off how much you already know about wine, you’d be better off being quiet.  After all, who are you trying to impress?  The server?  Your companion?  People at the next table?  They don’t care that you have a diploma from some wine academy and, if you don’t have a certificate, why would you act like that?
• Ask questions that will add to your appreciation of the wines you are tasting.  For example, it’s legitimate to ask what grapes were used to make a certain wine.  Also, we frequently ask about the percentage of alcohol.  Even if it’s well-balanced and not a “hot” wine, we sip less of a wine that’s 15% plus than of a Champagne, say, that’s only 12%.
• If you are considering joining the winery’s club, ask a lot of questions.  It’s quite fair to ask how many shipments there will be, about the shipping cost, whether you can customize the selection and, of course, how much the annual shipments will cost.  After all, you are thinking about making a commitment that will cost hundreds of dollars, if not more.  It’s always a good idea to know what you’re buying.
• It depends on how busy the server is.  When everyone tasted standing at the bar, it was easy to see how much work your server had to do.  Now, when so many wine tastings are seated affairs, you might think your server is dedicated just to you, but he or she has other people to pour for.  So if the server seems to be rushing from one table to another, it’s only fair to minimize your questioning.  That’s not to say you can’t ask, but you might not get all the information you’d like.

In these on-line pages, we have from time to time bemoaned the loss of a winery or the decision by some winemakers to discontinue making wines we used to love.  This past year has seen a number of winery closures in California, notably including Paraduxx and Newton in Napa Valley.  (Fortunately, new owners bought Newton and are re-opening it.  Still, this is another example of change in Wine Country.)

For the wine tasting visitor, these losses – and to be fair, additions as well – are not novel events.  Wine production has been changing as long as wine has been made.  We can imagine some ancient Roman bemoaning that he couldn’t get his favorite wine from Pompeii anymore.  But it does seem that the pace has picked up in recent years, driven by changes in wine drinkers’ tastes and the decline in sales of alcoholic beverages overall.

Photo courtesy of Cellar Tracker.

So how should you adapt to all this alteration, transformation and shift in the wineries they come to visit and taste?

• Buy up what’s still available.  The fact that a winery has chosen not to make a particular wine indicates that that particular label didn’t sell very well.  Yes, you loved it but not enough other people did (or at least not at that price) to make it economically feasible to continue making it.  For that reason, there may be a lot left in inventory.  When you visit the winery only to find that wine not on the list, just ask if you can still buy some.  If so, take advantage of the winery’s misfortune while there’s still time and buy, buy, buy.
• The wine may come back.  We remember when Joseph Phelps stopped making their Rhône blend, Vin du Mistral.  It was one of our favorites and then, in 2021, they made it again for one vintage.  Let’s hope that enough tasters ask for it at their St. Helena tasting room that they’ll bring it back again.
• Find out why the changes occurred.  There may be other reasons why a certain wine may not be available, beyond market conditions.  There may be new ownership or a new winemaker.  If this is the case, the name on the label may be the same name but it is no longer the same winery.  In most cases though, the vineyard is still there, growing the same grapes.  It may be a good idea to shrug off the differences in winemaking philosophy and see what the new winemaking team can do with what you were familiar with.
• Embrace change.  Remember that every wine changes, from harvest to harvest and over time due to global warming, among other reasons.  That’s one of the reasons to go wine tasting at all, to find novelty and development in the wines of a region that you’re already familiar with.  For example, we often bought a premium Merlot from a Sonoma County winery.  They decided to rip out the vines and plant Zinfandel instead.  We regret that we’ll never taste that Merlot again, but we buy a whole lot of their Zins these days.
• Get over it.  Nothing lasts forever, especially not wine.