by Jeff Miller of Artisan Family of Wines (Seven Artisans, Sly Dog Cellars, Red Côte Rosé)
Not a particularly engaging subject, but one that needs to discussed. I’m going to start with what is the most important thing to say on the subject: if you’re serious about tasting wines, you’ve got to spit.
There’s a technique to spitting that I and many others use. It’s not pretty, but it gets the job done. The key is that you shouldn’t be using a lot of force to expel the wine. You should position your lips over whatever you’re spitting into, and let the wine fall out of your mouth. Lips should be kept loose. You’re not trying to emulate a water pistol. With a little practice, anyone can do a passable job. Any way that the wine ends up in the spittoon, and not all over your clothes or other people, is good enough.
There’s no reason to get too hung up on the process. If you’re at a tasting with multiple stations, it’s a great idea to find a plastic cup that you can carry around with you. For some reason, it seems the spittoons at the tasting stations are where everyone congregates, so you’re always trying to find one you can reach easily. For some reason, the best laid plans often go awry, as the straight line you plotted to the nearest available spittoon gets blocked just as you need it. The plastic cup is a good way to circumvent this problem.
Why spit? It’s simple. Wine tasting is not wine drinking. If you’re going to taste a number of wines without spitting, the alcohol you consume is going to quickly affect your tasting abilities. I find as alcohol penetrates my system, everything tastes better, though I think others have different reactions. But no matter how you react, your tasting abilities will suffer. Even with spitting, I know I have a limited number of tastes before fatigue sets in and I am no longer tasting very well. That varies a lot with the type of wine. My limit is lower with big tannic wines than with more delicate ones. But either way, you’re dealing with a finite number. That finite number does down dramatically if you don’t spit.
The corollary to the fact that you’re not tasting very well for very long if you don’t spit, is that you’re becoming intoxicated. I don’t have a problem at all with that if your goal is a relaxed evening over a fine meal with friends, and you’re not intending to drive anywhere. But if you’re tasting without spitting, and trying to cover as much ground as you can, you simply can’t avoid the fact that your blood alcohol level is going to go to levels incompatible with any sort of meaningful tasting.
So it would behoove all who would engage in wine tasting to overcome whatever qualms they have on the subject, find a private place where they can practice (water first), and acclimate themselves to the process. If you’re not willing to do that, I don’t think you can ever become a serious taster, at least not for more than a few wines at a time.
