{"id":966,"date":"2018-06-29T20:12:56","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T20:12:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=966"},"modified":"2018-06-29T20:12:56","modified_gmt":"2018-06-29T20:12:56","slug":"wine-tasting-vs-tasting-wine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=966","title":{"rendered":"Wine Tasting vs. Tasting Wine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This occurred at a recent college reunion in New York, but it could have happened at any large gathering in any location.\u00a0 There was an event advertised as a wine tasting. About 500 people showed up at an outdoor plaza, under a tent on a hot summer day.\u00a0 The organizers had chosen fifteen or so wines, half red and half white (with one ros\u00e9 thrown in for balance) from California, France, Italy, Australia and Spain.\u00a0 The wines were served at various stations, reds and whites intermixed, laid out in flimsy plastic cups for the taking.\u00a0 The white wines were on ice but someone had heard that red wines were to be served at room temperature.\u00a0 Well, the \u201croom\u201d in this case was a tent under the sun, so the reds were roughly 90<sup>o<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<p>This may have been an opportunity to taste a lot of wine, but it wasn\u2019t a wine tasting.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/wine_glasses.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-967 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/wine_glasses-300x196.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"606\" height=\"396\" srcset=\"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/wine_glasses-300x196.jpg 300w, https:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/wine_glasses-768x503.jpg 768w, https:\/\/powertasting.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/wine_glasses.jpg 900w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 606px) 100vw, 606px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Photo courtesy of C. E. Lovejoy\u2019s Market<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>A wine tasting has form.<\/strong>\u00a0 That is not to say that wine tasting must be <em>formal<\/em>.\u00a0 In fact, some of the best are very informal, spent with friends over a dinner or a barbecue.\u00a0 But there must be some reason for drinking certain wines that gives the event some continuity and a reason for comparing the various ones being served.\u00a0 They may all be from a single producer, as happens in tasting rooms on a wine tasting trip.\u00a0 Or the same grapes from multiple producers in the same region.\u00a0 Or from different regions around the world.\u00a0 Or just different approaches to accompanying the meal being served.\u00a0 But a wine tasting is not: \u201cHere are five different wines.\u00a0 Try them and say which one you like.\u201d<\/li>\n<li><strong>A wine tasting has structure.<\/strong>\u00a0 Generally, that structure is from lightest to heaviest, topped off with a dessert wine.\u00a0 But it could also be from cheapest to most expensive (best done in a blind tasting).\u00a0 It might be fun to match up hillside wines against those from the valley-floor, of the same grapes.\u00a0 There has to be some reason to say, \u201cDrink this one first, then this one, then this\u2026\u201d<\/li>\n<li><strong>A wine tasting has content.<\/strong>\u00a0 It might be fun to line up Petrus, Screaming Eagle and Grange next to each other.\u00a0 We\u2019ve never been invited to a wine tasting like that and truly never expect to be.\u00a0 But in every tasting there ought to be some wines that are worth the attention for savoring and contemplation.\u00a0 What\u2019s the point of a selection of plonk from around the world?\u00a0 That\u2019s not to say that an unknown wine can\u2019t shine among the big names; we\u2019ve often been delightfully surprised by the Davids taking down the Goliaths.\u00a0 Still, the wines involved in a tasting should be carefully selected with some thoughtfulness about their quality.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A wine tasting has class.<\/strong>\u00a0 Oh, make that <em>glass<\/em>.\u00a0 While it is true that we\u2019ll be happy to take some Chateau Margaux in a Dixie Cup, for the most part we want to enjoy wine in a well-made glass, not a plastic beaker better used for biological specimens.\u00a0 That shows respect both for the wines and for those invited to taste them.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>At the event in New York, once it was clear that a real wine tasting wasn\u2019t on offer that day, we poured three samples of a cold white wine into a single cup and cooled off under that hot sun.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This occurred at a recent college reunion in New York, but it could have happened at any large gathering in any location.\u00a0 There was an event advertised as a wine tasting. About 500 people showed up at an outdoor plaza, under a tent on a hot summer day.\u00a0 The organizers had chosen fifteen or so &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=966\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Wine Tasting vs. Tasting Wine<\/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\/966"}],"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=966"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":968,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/966\/revisions\/968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}