{"id":1111,"date":"2018-11-30T19:40:05","date_gmt":"2018-11-30T19:40:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1111"},"modified":"2018-12-03T17:24:14","modified_gmt":"2018-12-03T17:24:14","slug":"taking-friends-wine-tasting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1111","title":{"rendered":"Going Wine Tasting with Friends or Relatives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Although there have been a few exceptions over the years, we mostly go wine tasting as a couple.\u00a0 Our tastes in wine are not exactly the same, but they\u2019re close enough that we generally like and occasionally dislike the same wineries.\u00a0 It has happened that we have visited Wine Country with friends or relatives.\u00a0 Some have been quite knowledgeable themselves and so having them along was simple.<\/p>\n<p>But there have been other times when our friends knew little about wine, had never been wine tasting before and wanted to experience it with us. The objectives (well, our objectives, if not theirs) is to have a pleasant day, to introduce your guests to a pastime that you are fairly passionate about and to give them a sampling of some good wines.\u00a0 Such a trip offers some\u00a0nice opportunities but there are some pitfalls as well.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/glasses.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-1115 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/glasses-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"611\" height=\"458\" srcset=\"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/glasses-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/glasses-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/glasses.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 611px) 100vw, 611px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Photo courtesy of Food &amp; Wine Magazine<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Here are some tips for taking advantage of the former and avoiding the latter.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Make sure your friends will still be your friends when the day is over.<\/strong> Don\u2019t be a wine snob; don\u2019t talk down to them; don\u2019t use fancy wine lingo.\u00a0 Yeah, you knew that already but say it to yourself before you set off and repeat it several times during the day.\u00a0 The temptation to brag is insidious and it can be overwhelming.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Make the day about more than wine.<\/strong> Plan a <a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=69\">nice lunch<\/a>, either a picnic or at a good caf\u00e9 or deli.\u00a0 Drive around in some of the prettier areas of the section of Wine Country you\u2019re visiting that day.\u00a0 Choose at least one winery with interesting architecture.\u00a0 If possible, go somewhere you know the servers are good at explaining what they\u2019re pouring.\u00a0 All these steps will keep your friends from feeling overwhelmed.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Go easy on the top end wineries.<\/strong> There are all too many that charge you forty dollars or more for a few sips of the one or two wines they make.\u00a0 For sure, these are some of the best winemakers in the world or at least they claim to be.\u00a0 But if your friends don\u2019t have the taste buds to distinguish between \u201cvery good\u201d and \u201cgreat\u201d you\u2019re probably not doing them a favor by visiting the heavy hitters.<\/li>\n<li><strong>On the other hand, don\u2019t play down to your perception of their sophistication.<\/strong> Only go to places you would visit if you were on your own.\u00a0 Your wine tasting adventures probably aren\u2019t all Screaming Eagle and Ch\u00e2teau Margaux, so don\u2019t show off.\u00a0 A good idea would be to choose wineries with two tiers of tastings, with one from their lower priced, popular wines and another with their reserves.\u00a0 That way your friends can taste these wines side by side.\u00a0 They may prefer the easy drinking accessible wines, what\u2019s wrong with that?<\/li>\n<li><strong>Focus the tastings on your friends, not yourself.<\/strong> Tell your server that you\u2019ve tasted their wines before but it\u2019s the first time for your friends.\u00a0 This enables the server to pitch his or her spiel to the right level, educational for them and not too elementary for you.\u00a0 You may come back some day and then you can get into all the intricacies you want.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The day will be a success if your friends enjoyed themselves and understood wine better than the day before.\u00a0 It would be great if they decided to visit Wine Country again on another day.\u00a0 But if they just added this day to their pleasurable memories and no more, that\u2019s okay too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Although there have been a few exceptions over the years, we mostly go wine tasting as a couple.\u00a0 Our tastes in wine are not exactly the same, but they\u2019re close enough that we generally like and occasionally dislike the same wineries.\u00a0 It has happened that we have visited Wine Country with friends or relatives.\u00a0 Some &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1111\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Going Wine Tasting with Friends or Relatives<\/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":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1111"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1130,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1111\/revisions\/1130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}