To find exciting wine tasting events in Melbourne opens up a whole new social arena for you to explore. As a wine lover, it’s nice to discover events where you’ll meet friends with a mutual respect for the grape, as well as discover many new and exciting wines to add to your weekly or monthly “circulation.”
However, remember that wine tasting events are a special kind of event with their own etiquette. If it’s your first time in attendance, here are some behaviours and other things to avoid doing while you are there!
- Don’t Drink Too Much, Too Fast
This is simply a one-way ticket to getting far too drunk and possibly making a nuisance of yourself at the event. A wine tasting isn’t just a fancy way for people to drink lots of wine. Events are invariably attended by real wine enthusiasts, and quite possibly some professional sommeliers and restaurant operators looking for new things to add to their selections. It is therefore not a place simply to get plastered.
If you’re given a small glass of wine to taste, swirl, sniff and sip the wine, don’t gulp it down in one. Proper wine tasting is a process where one tries their best to appreciate the many facets of a wine, but you can’t do that if you skull the glass as fast as possible.
- Think Before You Drink or Spit
Some are under the impression that wine tasting means you never actually drink the wine and just spit into one of those fancy buckets. In fact, this isn’t the case at all. If you’re going to sample a lot of different wines, then spitting is more common because otherwise you’d fall foul of our first piece of advice mentioned above. Likewise, if you are attending more than one wine tasting event in a day, then you might want to spit more at the first one, but possibly less at the second one.
Therefore, whether or not you make use of the spit bucket depends on the event, how it’s organized, and your own circumstances. Remember that even if you spit the wine, your body does absorb some, so don’t think you can spit as much as you like and then be perfectly fine to drive. The best rule of thumb is to follow what the event organisers recommend. Try to limit the wines you actually drink to ones that you feel strongly that you’ll like.
- Don’t Wear Scent
Remember that you’re there to sample and appreciate the wine. If you wear a powerful aftershave or perfume, or wear a scented skin lotion, for instance, then it can interfere with your appreciation of the wine. Beyond that, it could interfere with other people’s appreciation of their wine if you’re standing close enough to them. Be mindful of that when attending a wine tasting with lots of other people. You’d not get much social benefit if you are the one ruining others’ wine appreciation time.
- Don’t Act Like a Professional If You’re Not
There’s absolutely no shame in attending an event when your knowledge of wine is very limited. Even if some other attendees try to intimidate you or appear amused by your lack of knowledge, that’s their problem. Many attend these events to learn more, and the great thing is that your hosts will invariably be extremely knowledgeable on the wines they are selling. Therefore, don’t be afraid to ask questions and learn as much as possible.
What you absolutely should avoid is trying to sound like a wine expert by simply making up a spiel to follow your wine tasting. Be humble enough to taste and then ask questions, and listen to others as you learn.
