{"id":1495,"date":"2020-02-28T21:19:29","date_gmt":"2020-02-28T21:19:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1495"},"modified":"2020-02-28T21:23:55","modified_gmt":"2020-02-28T21:23:55","slug":"atmosphere-party-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1495","title":{"rendered":"Atmosphere: Party Time"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is the first of what will be an irregular series on how the atmosphere at a winery and its tasting room influences the wine tasting experience, your appreciation of the wines, and the impressions you keep when you look back on your visit and the wines you tried.\u00a0 We may overstate the case occasionally to make a point, but our thoughts on the subject are drawn from years of experience.<\/em><\/p>\n

There are sectors of Wine Country where the reason to go seems more to party down than to gain an understanding of the products made there.\u00a0 Some of these are in up-and-coming areas that attract a lot of young people.\u00a0 In that regard, Santa Barbara\u2019s Funk Zone<\/a> and many Long Island <\/a>wineries, both especially on the weekends, come to mind.\u00a0 But we have come across this same atmosphere in older, more established regions, such as Napa Valley, as well.<\/p>\n

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Long Island\u2019s Winery Dogs.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of CrypticRock.<\/em><\/p>\n

What are the hallmarks of a party winery?\u00a0 The most prominent seems to be rock or rap music, played very loud.\u00a0 On Long Island\u2019s North Fork, there are quite a few wineries that feature live bands on the weekend.\u00a0 And they\u2019re not top tier either; more likely they\u2019re the local bar band.<\/p>\n

Another clue is pizza by the pool.\u00a0 There are some wineries that have pizza ovens on premises and others that let a pizza truck pull up outside.\u00a0 We have nothing against either pizza or swimming pools.\u00a0 In fact, we like both very much. But not with a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon, which may cost more than $100 a bottle, in our hands and with the noise around us.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the point: No company that\u2019s serious about its product should cheapen its brand.\u00a0 The wines appropriate for a party atmosphere are light, fruity and refreshing.\u00a0 They are in the league of what you might expect to drink in a bar where the choice is only red or white.\u00a0 We all drink them from time to time, but we wouldn\u2019t make a special trip to try them.\u00a0 For those who do, the objective is the party, not the wine.<\/p>\n

It saddens us when we come across wineries that make high-quality wines (at top prices) that act more like hosts than winemakers.\u00a0 As we understand it, they think it helps them to differentiate themselves in a crowded tourist market.\u00a0 But as a representative of Long Island\u2019s Pellegrini Vineyards<\/a> told us, \u201cNo one stands out if they all do it.\u00a0 We\u2019d prefer to differentiate ourselves on our wine.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you are interested in discovering great wine and instead you discover that a party has broken out, there are several things you can do.\u00a0 One would be to get back in the car and go elsewhere, but then you might miss some fine wines.\u00a0 But are you really missing them if you can\u2019t enjoy them as they deserve?\u00a0 We submit that great wine just doesn\u2019t taste the same when there is extraneous distraction all around.<\/p>\n

Perhaps there are some quiet corners of a tasting room where you can sip your wine in peace.\u00a0 That does work, but it is likely that service will be slower, because the personnel are taking care of the party crowd.<\/p>\n

Another tactic is to avoid visiting on weekends, which isn\u2019t a bad idea on its own merits.\u00a0 Many of the wineries only get the party going then, so peace and quiet prevail the rest of the week.\u00a0 In some cases, even on weekdays the music is loud and the pizza is available, but the partiers aren\u2019t there so it\u2019s not as bad.<\/p>\n

We assure you that if you do visit one of these party palaces, it will be the party you remember years from now, not the wine.<\/p>\n

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This article is the first of what will be an irregular series on how the atmosphere at a winery and its tasting room influences the wine tasting experience, your appreciation of the wines, and the impressions you keep when you look back on your visit and the wines you tried.\u00a0 We may overstate the case … Continue reading Atmosphere: Party Time<\/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":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495"}],"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=1495"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1500,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1495\/revisions\/1500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}