2.3 Basic Steps in the Tasting Process

Most wineries charge the tasting fee upfront before the guest goes to the tasting session. If in your winery the guest does not pre-purchase a tasting ticket upon entering the winery or via an online reservation system, then the greeter needs to explain how the tasting works and help guests select the tasting option that works best for them.

It is important to give guests a quick sixty second overview of the tasting process and types of wines available to taste during the reservation/ticket purchasing process. Your visitors should then know what to expect and what the tasting options are before they commit to the tasting activity. Part of creating value for your visitors is to match their preferences and interests as closely as possible

Wines differ based on the primary ingredients used to produce them. For example, some wineries use mainly muscadine (scuppernong) grapes and others base their wines on vinifera grapes. The muscadine grape is native to the southeastern United States and produces a sweeter wine. Many familiar wines (both sweet and dry) are produced from the Vitis vinifera grape, which is cultivated in all the major wine regions of the world.

Actually, wines can be made from many other types of fruit as well, such as blueberries, cranberries, and also from other agricultural products, such as honey wine or “mead”. The following short videos gives you an overview of typical wine types that might be featured at a North Carolina winery and discusses the concept of developing your wine tasting palate.

POURING THE WINES

Each pour during a tasting is usually an ounce or less. Some tasting hosts use a premeasured dispenser on the wine bottles, while others are experienced and permitted to pour by hand. All glassware should be clean and sanitized. You should inspect glassware for faults or cracks prior to setting it in front of the customer.

To further reduce contact between servers and guests, wineries are pouring flights instead of serving individual wines where a server goes back and forth across multiple customers. A wine flight, or tasting flight, is a fixed set of controlled wine pours by the glass served to each guest. The number of wines varies, but there are usually 3-5 different wines and you serve all the glasses at once (see image below). At some wineries, flights are pre-poured before guests even sit down to minimize contact with service personnel. One benefit of the tasting flight service technique is that guests can try all the wines in front of them, and do a compare and contrast easily across wines.

Wine tasting is about involving the senses in a deeper appreciation of the wine. Let your guests know that the descriptions or “tasting notes” on the tasting sheets are good places to start understanding the differences among the wines they taste with you. If using printed tasting sheets, you should have enough quantity so that every guest at the tasting session can have one to use during the tasting to record their personal observations and to carry home with them if they like. Do not ask people to share tasting sheets or cards.

It is also helpful to ask if anyone wants any tips on wine tasting basics during the session. You can instruct those guests in traditional wine tasting steps that are featured in the video clip provided:

• 1. Encourage them to smell the wine to identify any familiar fragrances.

  2. Ask them to look at the color of the wine, and point out to them any particular qualities such as clarity or depth of color.

  3. Then invite them to taste the wine, advising them to let it roll over their tongue for a few seconds before swallowing in order to sense how the wine feels in the mouth.

  4. Have them take a second sip and help them focus on the different flavors that seem to come out from the wine.

  5. Remind them to take notes about the wine and their personal experience.

Have a look at the video clip to see a bit more detail on these steps. Focus on what the guests are doing in the video to get a feel for these various actions.

Your decision to move to the next wine on the list is dependent on the readiness of the guest to follow your narration. However, you need to manage the tasting time proactively, while giving each taster enough time to taste each wine carefully and savor each sip. Also, it is important to control the pace so it seems unhurried while you work your way through the wine sequence in a timely manner. You need to pay attention to your time management during the tasting in order to honor any required turnover of guest parties. Part of time management is to make sound decisions about how to manage your conversations with individual tasters.

Try to answer the following questions about the wine tasting process.

1. What should you do if you mistakenly pour wine into a cracked or chipped glass?

a. dump the wine out and dispose of the glass

b. give the guest a new clean glass

c. give the guest a fresh pour of the wine

d. all of the above are appropriate actions to take when this happens

2. The final part of the actual tasting sequence is to:

a. look at the wine, its colors, brilliance and depth

b. take note of the finish or aftertaste and how long it lingers

c. smell the wine by taking a deep sniff

d. roll the wine around the tongue before swallowing

Answers: 1. d; 2. b.

MANAGING CONVERSATIONS DURING THE TASTING SESSION

One objective of making conversation during a wine tasting is to create bonds between the winery and the visitor. The visitor is going to associate you, the tasting session host, with the quality of the winery and the brand. Your interaction with visitors can make or break the entire experience. How much you engage in conversation is highly dependent on the situation at that moment, the type of guests in front of you, and how much time you have allotted for the session.

Normally, wine is discussed by hosts who have knowledge about the wine and the winery, who will answer questions and will try to give guests some deeper insights about the wines the winery produces. Your guests will vary in their levels of wine knowledge as you have seen in Module 1. The secret of a good tasting is to balance the conversation among the different customers in the session so no one person is allowed to hijack the conversation or monopolize the tasting host’s time and attention.

In the presence of very well-informed wine consumers, you should be careful to honor the rest of the group and not get carried away with long-extended conversation about wine that puts everyone else to sleep. One way to handle this situation is to say to the customer, "this is interesting, let's continue the conversation after the formal tasting concludes."

Also, be aware of people’s feelings; try to look at all customers in a positive light, even if they mispronounce the name of a wine, i.e., the all too common /MERLOT/ with a hard T at the end. You cannot assume that lack of knowledge about wine is directly related to their ability to buy. People drink and buy wine for many reasons and each wine taster in front of you is uncharted territory and deserving of your respect and enthusiastic service.

All in all, you should be focused on engaging customers in appreciation of the wine and finding out if your guests actually like any of your wines. Consider the difference between Rick and Marty, both of whom are talking about the very same wine to a guest at the tasting session. Which tasting host is more likely encourage discussion and find out what the customer likes or dislikes?

 If you think about it, Rick is just repeating what is already on the tasting sheet or on the wine bottle label. This approach forces an image of the wine on the guest by describing the basic characteristics of the wine that customers should “expect” to taste or see. Rick’s tactic has the potential to get a bit stale over time since it pushes the wine at the guest rather than trying to bring the guest’s reaction or opinion out into the open. It also runs the risk of making customers feel inferior if they cannot detect those specific attributes themselves.

Marty, on the other hand, is focused on the customer. By asking guests how they like the wine, he obtains crucial feedback which will help him find wines that the customer might like enough to buy. Some tasting hosts suggest that their customers ignore the tasting sheets for a brief minute while they taste the wine, to allow them to develop their own taste awareness. Then the tasting  host will ask guests to describe what they are noticing about the wine. This is often a good time to point out that everyone's palate and sense of smell are different, which impacts each individual's wine preferences. At this point, the host will then have guests refer to tasting notes again to discover what nuances the wine maker found in the wine.

Of course, Marty's approach is always a gamble if the guest truly doesn’t like your wines. But you are better off knowing that quickly than spending a lot of time hard selling to a person who just isn’t interested. The other advantage is that when customers do some of the talking, the wine tasting feels less like a lecture and more like a social gathering that puts people into good moods.

SUGGESTIVE SELLING AND OFFERING SERVICES

As a tasting room associate, you do more than just serve wine during a tasting (or you should!).  You educate, inform, and sell the winery brand and products. Consider the fact that the most important factor in driving wine club membership is simply “telling your customers about it” when they visit your winery. Make sure you know about every promotional opportunity and sales strategy your winery currently offers. Perhaps guests are able to apply part of their tasting fee to their wine purchase that day. Maybe you offer a 10 percent discount on purchases of six bottles or more. Let them know!

For customers, the idea of receiving extra or personal service is always a motivating influence on their degree of satisfaction and perceived value in the winery visit. If you size up a customer as a potential buyer, you may be instructed by your managers to offer an additional “off-list” wine or two for tasting as a surprise bonus to strengthen the interpersonal bond between the winery and the guest. Choosing the right customer and moment to do this takes experience and careful listening to what the customer is saying about likes and previous or planned wine buying behavior. Be aware that taking this step requires you to be fair and provide the same service to other guests that may be observing your interactions. Ultimately, you need to balance the cost of serving extra wine against the potential of stimulating a specific prospective customer to buy your wines.

In Module 4 of this course, you will have the opportunity to explore a number of additional ideas for proactively selling to winery guests and for increasing the number of visitors that actually buy wine and take it home.

CONCLUDING THE TASTING SESSION

Given that every wine tasting session has to end sometime, you will have to move customers along in the tasting process so you finish in a reasonable amount of time. As the tasting session host, you can hint that the wine tasting is coming to a ending by sending out a few verbal clues as you are nearing the finish line:

• 1. Announce that you are now discussing the “last wine” of the tasting.

  2. Continue by thanking the guests for spending their day with you at the winery.

  3. And then, after all guests have had time to enjoy the last wine, tell them that the tasting is officially over and guide them to the next phase of their visit.

  4. Depending on your winery, this is also the moment in which you may offer to help them with any purchases they wish to make.

Try to be subtle in your closing and avoid excessive cleaning actions while the guests are still at the bar. The sight and smells of cleaning activities can interfere with their enjoyment and memories of the wines they have just tasted.

Check your progress with the follow two questions:

1. One of your main goals for managing the conversation during a tasting is to:

a. introduce guests at the tasting bar to each other

b. find out if your guests like any of the wines enough to buy them

c. keep the wine experts talking so everyone else can keep quiet

d. make sure that the guests read every description on the wine tasting sheet

2. What is NOT a recommended tactic for closing a tasting session with your guests?

a. announce that you are now serving the “last wine” of the tasting

b. thank the guests for spending their day with you at the winery

c. tell guests they are welcome to move on to other areas in the tasting room

d. wipe down the counter with a strong-smelling cleaning product 

Answers: 1. b; 2. d.

For the final section of Module 2, click on the following link:

General controls for safety and risk management