How to Make Wine Tasting Discoveries

Christopher Columbus wasn’t trying to discover America.  He was looking for China and stopped in Hispaniola, which of course had already been “discovered” by the people living there.  All the same it worked out pretty well (except for the natives).  If you want to make discoveries on a wine tasting trip, you can’t set out to find them; you have to let them happen and recognize them when you do.

Moshin Vineyards’ tasting room.

  • Be adventurous – Take the side roads off the main drag, whether that be Sonoma County’s Route 101, Burgundy’s Route des Vins, or the D2 in Bordeaux. You don’t know what you’ll find there and in fact there may be no wineries at all.  But sometimes there’s a little château with a small production and a limited distribution that blows your mouth away.  As often as not, you’ll get to meet the owner, who doubles as the winemaker and whose daughter is the only one there who can speak English.  And you’ll be served in their kitchen.  You won’t forget an experience like that.
  • Be prepared to fail – Alas, some of those little unknown wineries are small and unfamiliar for a reason. This is especially true if you’re on a tasting trip through regions where the wines are just names to you.  If you’re on your own, for the first time in the South Africa’s Stellenbosch, the Barossa in Australia or California’s Santa Clara Valley, you’ll have no idea what’s to be found in the next winery down the road.  Maybe you’ll get lucky but there’s just as good a chance that what you’ll find is something you wouldn’t put on your table.  You have to take your chances.
  • Recognize a discovery when you make one – Most American tasting rooms have a variety of wines available to taste. (So do many overseas, but in regions such as Burgundy or Tuscany, they may make only one kind of wine.)  If you’ve never heard of the winery or the wines they make, your reactions may be summarized as “eh, meh, ugh, and wow”.  It’s important not to let the first three color your perceptions so you can tell that a wow is a WOW.

Iron Horse Vineyards’ “tasting room”.  Photo courtesy of Pinterest.

  • Make the most of what you find – The wines you try in an unknown winery may fall well below your standards but the overall experience may be a discovery in itself. There may be a beautiful landscape or a fine art collection or architecture that thrills you.  Contrarily, you may find superb wine being served in what is little more than a shed.  Iron Horse Vineyards fits into this latter category and is truly a discovery in itself.  The entire premise of Power Tasting is that the wine tasting experience is more important even than the wines by themselves.

The overall point is that you can’t and won’t make discoveries unless you are open to them.  Throw away your preconceptions.  Be ready to try something you’re unfamiliar with.  Trust your eyes and your taste buds.  You’ll reap rewards.

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