There are two good reasons to visit a particular winery on any particular trip to Wine Country: to taste good wine and to experience wonderful places.\u00a0 Unfortunately, there are some wineries that have neither attribute.\u00a0 (It is not Power Tasting\u2019s policy to give derogatory reviews, so we\u2019ll withhold names.\u00a0 But take it from us, they exist and they\u2019re no fun.)\u00a0 So why go to one of these wineries?<\/p>\n
The easy answer is, \u201cDon\u2019t go\u201d.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not always easy to do.\u00a0 For one thing, you don\u2019t know you\u2019re going to have a poor experience until you have it.\u00a0 And there may be reasons why you are at a particular winery that are beyond your control.\u00a0 Perhaps you\u2019re with someone who doesn\u2019t know anything about wine but likes the sound of the wine\u2019s name. \u00a0Maybe your client has an interest in a winery.\u00a0 Maybe it\u2019s just there on the road, so why not.\u00a0 These have all happened to us, at one time or another.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s sort of like being at a dull party; you\u2019re already there and maybe something will come up.\u00a0 How can you leave five minutes after arriving?\u00a0 At one of these sad wineries, you brace yourself and try your best to seem interested.\u00a0 You hold onto a glass for longer than usual, looking around, not actually tasting more than the barest sip and saying things like:<\/p>\n
Some of the grand palaces being erected by wineries these days at least offer the possibility of architectural interest.\u00a0 But what about wineries that are no more than a suburban house or, worse, an industrial shed?\u00a0 You can\u2019t just jump to conclusions; great wineries come in modest homes.\u00a0 For years, Ridge\u2019s Lytton Springs winery was in the barrel room.\u00a0 Iron Horse has a wooden, outdoor shed.\u00a0 Heitz Cellar is a modest stone building.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t tell a book by its cover, you can\u2019t tell a wine by its winery, either.\u00a0 But you can be forewarned.\u00a0 If it doesn\u2019t look too good and there are no cars in the parking lot, maybe you should think twice about entering.<\/p>\n
There is a variant on the Lousy Winery phenomenon. You\u2019re hating everything about the place: the wine, the tasting room, the noisy people assembled at the bar.\u00a0 But everyone else, in particular your companions, is loving it.\u00a0 And it\u2019s raining so you can\u2019t just wait outside.\u00a0 This is the time to recognize the wisdom of Orr\u2019s Law from Catch 22<\/em>:\u00a0 If you\u2019re bored, time goes more slowly and you live longer. Okay, it\u2019s not a very good rationale but it may be the only rationale you have.<\/p>\n We have recently been travelling in some lesser known wine making areas in France and California and we have happened upon some of these unfortunate wineries.\u00a0 Sometimes we were the only ones there so we couldn\u2019t leave without being rude.\u00a0 We sipped; we sighed; and we left.\u00a0 We recommend this strategy if you find yourself so entrapped.\u00a0 You never know, the next place down the road may be wonderful.\u00a0 Or not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There are two good reasons to visit a particular winery on any particular trip to Wine Country: to taste good wine and to experience wonderful places.\u00a0 Unfortunately, there are some wineries that have neither attribute.\u00a0 (It is not Power Tasting\u2019s policy to give derogatory reviews, so we\u2019ll withhold names.\u00a0 But take it from us, they … Continue reading Lousy Wineries<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=468"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":479,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions\/479"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}