Anyone that has been wine tasting probably has stories. I would like to share a couple with you.

Not all wine tasting venues are the same and the best one depends on you. I have tasted wine in many locations; a bar setting, a restaurant, people’s houses, urban tasting rooms, and rural wineries.

If put on the spot and asked what I think the ultimate tasting experience to be, it would be at a small, artistic winery that has a view of the grape vines and the person pouring the wine is the artist. For me tasting wine is better if I also learn the story behind the wine.

The person serving the wine can have a great impact on the enjoyment. Let me give you an example of what I don’t want when being served. I was out tasting wine in a popular wine tasting area. I was with a rather large group of experienced tasters. As is the norm at this location, they had multiple tasting options and we don’t always agree on what to taste. The group started with a white wine tasting and then moved to tasting red wines. After several red wine tastes one taster wanted to go back and taste white. The server refused and began a rant about tasting order and you can’t go back from red to white when tasting. While it might be true that there is a preferred tasting order and that the taster wanted to deviate from it in this situation it was handled so poorly that the group stopped tasting and moved to a different venue.

While on a wine tasting vacation I was so anxious to taste that we unexpectedly showed up before the tasting room was open. It was a rural setting with a long walking path from the parking lot to the tasting room. As we were walking up the path we passed a man dressed in overalls that had obviously been working because they were not clean. He asked if we were there to taste wine and we replied yes. He let us know that the tasting manager was not there yet and they didn’t normally open for another half an hour. We turned around to go back to the car, I’m sure if it was disappointment showed on my face that caused it but he begged us to follow him up to the tasting room and he would stay with us till someone arrived. When inside and sat down he started looking for something to pour us. He picked a wine poured it and started asking questions as we tasted. We told him where we were from and that this winery had done well in our local wine competition. He continued to pour, we continued to taste, and we had great conversation. At one point he asked if we knew which wines had been shown at the competition and how they had done. We shared the results with him. At that point a big smile came to his face and he brought out wines from the competition. As we tasted the wine he informed us that he was the owner of the winery while watching our jaws drop. That turned out to be one of the most memorable experience of our lives and took home a couple of signed bottles of wine to remember it by.

The people you taste wine with can change the experience. Time to taste some wine and share stories.