Wondering what your take is on the technique of evaluating a wine by
the typical one sip and spit method, used of necessity at wine
tastings.

I find that one sip can be used to rule out a bad wine, but it's not
enough to fully appreciate the good ones. In other words, wines that
are merely good upon sipping at first later get better the more of
them I drink (i.e., don't spit), while others do not

So, it looks to me that to fully evaluate a wine, one has to drink it.

If I am right, then this means that magazine point ratings derived
from the sip and spit method are even less precise than we normally
think.

--
=================================================
Do you like wine? Do you live in South Florida?
Visit the MIAMI WINE TASTERS group at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/miamiWINE
=================================================

I really can't agree guys.

In casual ad hoc tasting, sip and swallow is nice. Not that the act of
swallowing itself enhances any taste perceptions. It MAY however affect some
olfactory perceptions which admittedly have an important part to play in the
enjoyment of wine. In "serious" tasting, which for me means tasting 6 - 10
wines for buying case quantities for the cellar, sipping only is mandatory
as after the 4th or 5th tasting my brain is getting increasingly
insensitive to my taste and olfactory messages.

I can't really say that I've been disappointed with wines that I liked at
the tasting but didn't like as much when I got them home. True, some
haven't developed as I might have judged they would but hey, that's part of
the enjoyment of this sport.

As for rating points, can anyone seriously postulate that a particular
reviewers rating of 96 is materially better than a 94 or 95 on any given day
or even time of day? All those high ratings say to me is "Hey, try me too."
My palate and brain, in their ongoing journey of learning, are always the
final judge....... Hmmmmm. Did I also mention my purse?
--
Regards
Chuck
So much wine; So little time!

To reply, delete NOSPAM from return address

"Leo Bueno" > wrote in message
...
>..............
> So, it looks to me that to fully evaluate a wine, one has to drink it.
>
> If I am right, then this means that magazine point ratings derived
> from the sip and spit method are even less precise than we normally
> think.
>
> --
> =================================================
> Do you like wine? Do you live in South Florida?
> Visit the MIAMI WINE TASTERS group at
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/miamiWINE
> =================================================

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 15:03:37 +0100, Mike Tommasi >
wrote:

>On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 13:48:53 GMT, Leo Bueno
> wrote:
>
>>
>>Wondering what your take is on the technique of evaluating a wine by
>>the typical one sip and spit method, used of necessity at wine
>>tastings.
>>
>>I find that one sip can be used to rule out a bad wine, but it's not
>>enough to fully appreciate the good ones. In other words, wines that
>>are merely good upon sipping at first later get better the more of
>>them I drink (i.e., don't spit), while others do not

>Seriously, wine WAS made for accompanying a meal shared with good
>friends, I find that sip and spit works to get some fleeting
>impressions about the most obvious characteristics of a wine, but one
>can get fooled by wines made to seduce precisely in such
>circumstances. This is whi so many wines that impress under these
>conditions can be so disappoionting once you take them home.
>
>It is also hard to separate each wine from the previous when you do a
>series of sip and spit. Sure, pros do it and some of us fake it, but
>if you love wine there is nothing more boring. More than six and I
>lose interest.

God, but I love this group! It regularly triggers memories from my
checkered past; experiences that I'd misplaced in the clutter of an
aging mind but when suitable jostled back to the surface give me a
warm toasty feeling with resolved tannins, a hint of dark fruit and a
long velvety finish.

I've never been a sip and spitter (stop thinking those disgusting
porn-site thoughts, you over there in the corner!) I like wine and I
like to drink it, usually sitting with friends and talking rather than
standing at a table among twenty jostling snobs sucking wind between
their teeth and making disgusting gargling noises. And, nothing is
more off-putting to me than a bucket, even if it is silver of
expectoration.

But, once during a magnificent five day Bacchanal in the Burgundy and
Beaujolais region which included visits to Lameloise, Troisgros and
Bocuse, I stumbled (not literally) into the great market or whatever
they call it in the center of Beaune. There in this great museum-like,
minimalist grotto there were bottles for the tasting displayed in
grand array.

"When in Rome....er, Beaune...." they sip and spit. So, for once in my
disgusting life, I sipped and spat. I even rinsed with water and
"cleansed" my palate with cheese niblets and crackers and tiny squares
of baguette.

What did I learn? I learned that for me, I achieve sensory overload
and taste-bud burn-out in about five wines. Sip, slosh, snort, gargle,
and spit. Sure, there's some flavor there. And, yep, this one seems
pretty good, but that last one was better, I think. Ooopss, my tongue
is numb, my teeth are furry and the insides of my cheeks are on fire.
Can I taste much? Nope. Screw it, let's go to lunch and sit down with
a bottle of something...

YMMV.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com

I personally think it's an insult to the wine to spit it out (What? I'm
not good enough to swallow!?) and part of the fun is getting buzzed. Who
goes to non-alcoholic wine tastings? I just have to remember to sip, not
really drink.

Ok, I'll be odd man out and come to the defense of spitting. For
enjoyment, I obviously prefer to drink wine, following the evolution in
the bottle. But......

1) I have limited funds to spend on wine. I often take the opportunity
to go to large store tastings, or trade events (I know enough ITB folks
to get in to most). These are usually daytime, and I don't want to get
snockered. Besides, if I swallow I really would lose some analytical
ability after a while (some of these tastings feature 200 wines, and I
might try to taste 50-60 I'm interested in. Occasionally you see
someone who doesn't spit there, it's a sad sight. I regard these
occasions as research for my financial good, not as pleasure.

2) Similarly, I occasionally participate in rather large verticals or
horizontals. I think we had 29 2000 Bordeauxes at one, and I'm planning
a Gruaud vertical where we have at least 19 vintages. In those
situations, I drink more than at a trade tasting (adn have a grand old
time), but I still don't want to drink THAT much. So I'll spit the ones
I like least, so I can fully enjoy others.

I tend to put disclaimers on my notes from trade or store tastings,
since I would never claim that 1 oz pours are the best way to fully
explore a wine. But, for my purposes, a small pour and a subsequent
spit is still a better guide to MY tastes than any critic. And even
without swallowing one gets a pretty good idea of tannin and acidity
levels, fruit profiles, oak levels, etc.

"DaleW" > wrote:

> Ok, I'll be odd man out and come to the defense of spitting.

You're not the only one. Wine-writing being my profession,
spitting is the only method when you write-up comparative
tastings.

M.

Tasting fatigue is real enough. Well designed experiments to evalute
foods, including wines, by a panel of people require that the tasting
order be randomized for the different panel members. For a good
evaluation of a single individual, he or she must repeat the tasting on
several days with a randomized order of tasting.

To reduce tasting fatigue, pros tasting a huge variety of wiines must do
what they can to avoid tasting fatigue. Spitting can help. Tasting
lighter and more mature wines before young inmature ones and sweet ones
can help. Some water and plain bread can help. Also remember a pro often
is tasting wines that are very far from being mature. Very few are going
to like a harsh, young, top Bordeaux or vintage port that still is in
the cask or just bottled. What the pro must do is try to guess how the
wine will taste when mature enough to be good drinking. Here past
experience with wines from a property at various stages of development
is quite important. Of course one also needs to know if important
changes have been made in a property. Some wines are very difficult to
evaluate young - for example Mouton-Rothschild.

For store tastings of many wines that are ready to drink, you may need
to do what works for you to avoid fatigue. Then you can buy single
bottles of your top picks. After detailed evaluation of the single
bottles at home, you can then purchase more of the ones you like best.

My mailbox is always full to avoid spam. To contact me, erase
from my email address. Then add . I do not
check this box every day, so post if you need a quick response.

Salut/Hi Leo Bueno,

I've just read through most of the posts so far.

le/on Fri, 25 Feb 2005 13:48:53 GMT, tu disais/you said:-


>Wondering what your take is on the technique of evaluating a wine by
>the typical one sip and spit method, used of necessity at wine
>tastings.

I think the key phrase here is "used of necessity".

I go to quite a number of tastings, some of which may include well over 100
wines. It is a physiological fact that (sensory fatigue aside) alcohol has a
numbing effect on the palate, which limits the number of wines that can be
properly tasted to about 5 or 6 if you're drinking them.

So, if you want to be able to go on tasting all day, you HAVE to spit.

But it's equally true that wine was made (as Michael Tommasi said) to be
drunk, and much of the best, made to be drunk with a meal. So it is
certainly true that to get the best out of wine, you have to treat it as it
was intended.

So those of us who "taste" as opposed to "drink", do so, if we're wise,
knowing that we're doing a different thing. As I said in my articles about
Riedel glasses, sometimes you need/want to analyse a/some wine/s and
sometimes you want to drink them for pleasure. When I'm at a dinner with
friends, I'm not there to analyse whether the wine comes from this region,
whether it's well made or what grapes it's made from. I'm seeking to enjoy
myself, and gain pleasure from the experience. On the other hand, if I'm
tasting, although I get pleasure from doing so, it's the same _type_ of
pleasure as I get learning about anything. The wine may taste foul, being
completely unready for drinking, that doesn't matter, I'm seeking to learn
about something.

There have been occasions when I've been at tastings anmd I've not spat. Not
many, and usually only at the producer. For example, I couldn't bring myself
to spit when visiting DRC. However, these are very rare. Last fall, for
example, we visited the West coast of the USA as I'm sure you know. We
tasted in many wineries - often visiting 4 a day. We HAD to spit if we were
going to be able to talk as intelligently to the winemaker of the fourth
place we were visiting about the LAST wine they poured, as we had about the
first wine poured by the first winery. Further more, if we wanted to be able
to keep driving from one winery to the other, we simply couldn't afford to
drink.

So - and here I'm with Mike Scapitti, drinking and tasting are completely
different, and wine is meant to be drunk. BUT, and here I disagree both with
him and with a number of posters in this thread, I think you HAVE to be
prepared to taste (and that implies spitting competently) if you are going
to be able to maximise your enjoyment of wine later.

>I find that one sip can be used to rule out a bad wine, but it's not
>enough to fully appreciate the good ones.

Hmm, half true on both counts IMO. A very young wine, still in barrel can
show very badly indeed, amd most of us would perhaps reject it wrongly.
Equally, spitting isn't _supposed_ to let you "fully appreciate it", so you
shouldn't really reject spitting for that reason.

>If I am right, then this means that magazine point ratings derived
>from the sip and spit method are even less precise than we normally
>think.

Hang on!!! All these tasting points are never meant to be anything better
than one man's/team's ephemeral impression at the time. It's the punters who
read them that try to cast them into concrete.
--
All the Best
Ian Hoare
http://www.souvigne.com
mailbox full to avoid spam. try me at website

DaleW wrote:
> Ok, I'll be odd man out and come to the defense of spitting. For
> enjoyment, I obviously prefer to drink wine, following the evolution in
> the bottle. But......

Can I be odd man out, too? While I drink wine with dinner no less than
3-4 times per week (and often more), I also do attend group tastings and
visit wineries. On such occasions, I almost always "sip and spit." I
do not feel as if this in any way handicaps my ability to evaluate the
wine; in fact, it improves it. However, I usually have more than one
sip of a wine and often will come back to a wine after minutes or hours
to see how a wine has changed. Usually, my notes will reflect that
dynamic aspect of the wine. Proper technique (IMO) permits one to taste
the wine fully even without swallowing. Moreover, as others have
mentioned, it reduces palate saturation and the dulling effects of
alcohol. Additionally, when I'm driving it's the only sane course of
action. Although I too believe that wine is best appreciated with food,
I find that it is easier to analyze a wine without the interactions that
food brings to bear. Fortunately, I rarely feel the need to be that
analytical at dinner, so you won't find a spit bucket at our dinner
table either! ;-)

Mark Lipton

Mark Lipton wrote:

> Can I be odd man out, too? While I drink wine with dinner no less than
> 3-4 times per week (and often more), I also do attend group tastings and
> visit wineries. On such occasions, I almost always "sip and spit." I
> do not feel as if this in any way handicaps my ability to evaluate the
> wine; in fact, it improves it. However, I usually have more than one
> sip of a wine and often will come back to a wine after minutes or hours
> to see how a wine has changed. Usually, my notes will reflect that
> dynamic aspect of the wine. Proper technique (IMO) permits one to taste
> the wine fully even without swallowing. Moreover, as others have
> mentioned, it reduces palate saturation and the dulling effects of
> alcohol. Additionally, when I'm driving it's the only sane course of
> action. Although I too believe that wine is best appreciated with food,
> I find that it is easier to analyze a wine without the interactions that
> food brings to bear. Fortunately, I rarely feel the need to be that
> analytical at dinner, so you won't find a spit bucket at our dinner
> table either! ;-)

Mark, one of the aspects of tasting that we all consider is how long the
taste is on the palate. Can you experience that without swallowing? That
to me is on the back of the palate and only comes with swallowing.

Mark Lipton wrote:
> Proper technique (IMO) permits one to taste
> the wine fully even without swallowing.

and "Bill Loftin" responded...
>
>Mark, one of the aspects of tasting that we all consider is how long
> the taste is on the palate. Can you experience that without swallowing?
> That to me is on the back of the palate and only comes with swallowing.

I have a foot in both camps - sip and spit, sure, when the occasion
warrants.

But, when spitting, I try to retain a small quantity in my mouth, which I
swallow.

This way, I get to "drink" the wine, without having any effect from the
alcohol.

Yes, I know that the olfactory system is the key to evaluation, but I like
to swallow a few drops to enhance the experience.

--

st.helier

Leo Bueno wrote:
> Wondering what your take is on the technique of evaluating a wine by
> the typical one sip and spit method, used of necessity at wine
> tastings.
>
> I find that one sip can be used to rule out a bad wine, but it's not
> enough to fully appreciate the good ones. In other words, wines that
> are merely good upon sipping at first later get better the more of
> them I drink (i.e., don't spit), while others do not
>
> So, it looks to me that to fully evaluate a wine, one has to drink it.

Yes. Not necessarily with food, but yes.

> If I am right, then this means that magazine point ratings derived
> from the sip and spit method are even less precise than we normally
> think.

How precise did you normally think magazine ratings were?

Dana

Leo Bueno wrote:
> Wondering what your take is on the technique of evaluating a wine by
> the typical one sip and spit method, used of necessity at wine
> tastings.
>
> I find that one sip can be used to rule out a bad wine, but it's not
> enough to fully appreciate the good ones. In other words, wines that
> are merely good upon sipping at first later get better the more of
> them I drink (i.e., don't spit), while others do not
>
> So, it looks to me that to fully evaluate a wine, one has to drink
it.
>
> If I am right, then this means that magazine point ratings derived
> from the sip and spit method are even less precise than we normally
> think.
>
> --
> =================================================
> Do you like wine? Do you live in South Florida?
> Visit the MIAMI WINE TASTERS group at
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/miamiWINE
> =================================================



Wine is intended to be drunk with food, not sampled and spit out. The
ONLY way to evaluate a wine (if you feel compelled to do this) is by
serving it and consuming it with a meal.

Bill Loftin wrote:

>
> Mark, one of the aspects of tasting that we all consider is how long the
> taste is on the palate. Can you experience that without swallowing? That
> to me is on the back of the palate and only comes with swallowing.

Bill,
I think that you're talking about judging the finish of a wine. To
me, that is all about retronasal olfaction, so simply swishing the wine
in your mouth and fully aerating it give me a good sense of the finish.
I can't say that I've felt any better informed about the finish when I'm
not spitting vs. when I am.

On a vaguely related note, I think that one of the major flaws in many
people's sipping technique is taking too large a sip to judge a wine. I
find that a comparatively small amount of wine in the mouth, thoroughly
agitated and aerated, provides me with the best sense of what the wine
is like. And, as I mentioned before, I usually take more than one sip
of a given wine to judge it. Pros like M. Pronay are usually much
quicker, as they've had so much more practice in both sipping and
spitting (I feel like such a newbie when spitting during barrel tastings
-- the pros send out the wine in a high velocity stream, whereas I'm
mainly trying not to dribble it on my shirt front! :P)

Mark Lipton

Many Big Gulps.
"Mark Lipton" > wrote in message
...
> Bill Loftin wrote:
>
>>
>> Mark, one of the aspects of tasting that we all consider is how long the
>> taste is on the palate. Can you experience that without swallowing? That
>> to me is on the back of the palate and only comes with swallowing.
>
> Bill,
> I think that you're talking about judging the finish of a wine. To me,
> that is all about retronasal olfaction, so simply swishing the wine in
> your mouth and fully aerating it give me a good sense of the finish. I
> can't say that I've felt any better informed about the finish when I'm not
> spitting vs. when I am.
>
> On a vaguely related note, I think that one of the major flaws in many
> people's sipping technique is taking too large a sip to judge a wine. I
> find that a comparatively small amount of wine in the mouth, thoroughly
> agitated and aerated, provides me with the best sense of what the wine is
> like. And, as I mentioned before, I usually take more than one sip of a
> given wine to judge it. Pros like M. Pronay are usually much quicker, as
> they've had so much more practice in both sipping and spitting (I feel
> like such a newbie when spitting during barrel tastings -- the pros send
> out the wine in a high velocity stream, whereas I'm mainly trying not to
> dribble it on my shirt front! :P)
>
> Mark Lipton

I think that at small offerings of 4-5 wines with dinner, I prefer to
drink the wine. I just returned from a week in Napa where we sampled
well over 150 wines in six days, many from barrel, spitting was a
necessity.