Is the sip and spit method enough to evaluate a wine Sender: Ian

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 glbuttes, 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.

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.

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 mailbox full to avoid spam. try me at website