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Slideshow
Eight irritating habits of people in the wine trade
The wine trade is largely made up of wine lovers happy to be working in an industry where they can indulge in their personal love of wine, but it also breeds some irritating habits.
From stingy pours to projectile spitters, we have rounded up a selection of the most commonly frowned upon habits committed by members of the wine trade, all in good fun.
Do you have any more to add? Please comment below or email lauren@thedrinksbusiness.com
Projectile spitting
We have all seen them, those who consider spitting an Olympic sport. Lining up several yards from the spittoon, they impressively project their waste wine into a spittoon as if it were a basketball hoop. While we admire your skill, such showmanship is unnecessary.
People that don’t spit at all
We all know our limits and you might very well be able to taste some 50 wines without spitting, but you will likely be in the minority.
This is common behaviour at consumer tastings, and marginally more understandable, but a glazed expression and slurring your speech is just not a good look at a trade tasting, or worse, serving as a judge at a competition!
Indiscernible spittoons
A welcomingly obvious style of spittoon
While we understand the need to make spittoons discrete, sometimes efforts to conceal the desired spitting receptacle go too far, making it difficult to determine the intended vessel at all. Is it a spittoon? A vase? A jug? This type of confusion can only lead to embarrassment.
A friend of mine, who shall remain anonymous, was attending a tasting once and, with no other receptacle in view, began spitting into what they understandably believed to be a spittoon. Its intended purpose was only revealed when a waiter plonked a bottle of chilled white into the now half full vessel. It wasn’t a spittoon.
Tasting table hoggers
Journalists are perhaps among the worst offenders of this, keen to get those all important comments from tasting table attendees. On behalf of my profession I apologise. However it’s a common habit of many attending a tasting.
If a tasting is busy, it’s only polite to keep conversation to a minimum to allow the pourer to attend all tasters waiting a pour promptly.
Tasting crashers
The wine trade is an inclusive and welcoming industry, unless you are an uninvited freeloader. Every now and then you get a few chancers that get wind of a trade tasting and swagger in with a confidence that implies they had been invited.
They may prove to be a welcome addition to the crowd, keen to learn more and might even go on to buy a case. Usually, however, they are simply after the free wine. Giveaways to their true motivation include spending an excessively long time at the event in the first place, never spitting and rarely making eye contact.
Stingy pourers
Please sir, can I have some more?
We don’t want to waste your wine, but we also want to taste it. A finger width is just too little a measure and does nothing to show a wine in its best light.
Give us at least two fingers, but not that kind, and we will get on swimmingly.
Bottle hogs
This one refers more to open tastings, when bottles are not monitored by pourers and spittoons are merely a suggestion. This is how it goes. Guests arrive, scan the tasting list and pinpoint the best drops, perhaps an expensive Champagne or rare spirit. Within half an hour these bottles are drained, before you’ve even had a chance to track down its location.
Admittedly this kind of behaviour is rare among the trade, with the majority polite in their measures. At a consumer tasting? Get ready to race.
Excessive swirling, sniffing and general pretentiousness
This is perhaps the biggest complaint of all. While we appreciate a certain amount of sniffing and swilling is necessary, it can go beyond the realms of requirement. Sharing your views on a wine should be encouraged, of course, but not when doing so requires a dictionary and three minute monologue.
People who stand about chatting in front of the spittoons blocking your way…
Those who taste in large groups (always Restaurants) and hog the table…
LOUD SCREAM
We had one chap at a tasting who claimed to be a journalist and showed us a ragged piece from a magazine. He then said that if we gave him a couple of bottles he would write a review. He’d even brought his own carrier bag. Was funny the first time but he kept turning up to tastings to blag free wine. Eventually we contacted tasting organisers to ban him from attending.
Not recognising faulty wines. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve poured a sample from a bottle that is half full, only to discover that it is haloanisole tainted, oxidised, or otherwise faulty. Not only have the stand staff failed to check the wine, but the previous dozen or do tasters haven’t realised it was faulty or alerted them to have it pulled.
The time a director of a major wine importer, at an in-house tasting, aimed for the spitoon, forgetting that he just had his teeth fixed. A fine spray of wine shot out sideways and made a lovely pattern down the front of a fellow directors new cream linen suit.
Or the time my neighbour, a huge wine snob, was served a cheap wine from a bottle of expensive Italian red. “Absolutely outstanding!” he exclaimed.
Or the time a colleague dropped a cigarette butt into the wine glass of a very, very drunk fellow employees wine glass. He picked up the wine glass and knocked it back, butt and all.
Or the time the boss of the Icelandic distributors team got very drunk at a boardroom lunch and unbuttoned his fly and piddled against a glass wall, to the horror of the open plan office on the other side.
I could go on.
Jeremy’s is the most entertaining! Lmao!!!
very funny comments, if you have time, write some more?
Heh. Soon after we opened our tasting room we learned to make the spit bucket very clear. We were using a nice looking vase as the spitter, and a customer decided they liked it and proceeded to turn it upside down, looking for a price tag…
One time at a beautiful seaside venue , a fine upscale hotel, a couple of my customers were so happy, they decided to have a quick “go at it” in the ladies room. The ladies in there weren’t quite as excited.
I had a 400 pound enologist at Ektimo winery scream at me for bringing a flower into a tasting room. claiming I was ruining the bouquet of the wines. As I looked around, I noticed a stinking restroom in the tasting room and smelled the open cess pool right next to the tasting room…..
what irritates me ? the studying classroom atmosphere of tasting sessions, the so called ability to find “incredible color variations” between 2 indistinguishable wines, the so called ability to taste differences, even after 20 wines, the endless ability to find words to describe flavours, and finally (but that’s not from the experts), the docile nodding of the audience, agreeing to anything being told by the “expert”.
My favorite is when a “trade attendee” baths in so much perfume or aftershave that their ORDOR cannonballs into the room, the wines and everyone else.
A supplier or importer informing us that our (retail) selection of a certain category (Austrian, Sancerre, South Africa, etc) is “just Ok” or “needs work” when what they really mean is that without carrying their specific products our selection is lackluster.
Chardonnay. Another Russian River Chardonnay. Or even worse,a Burgundian Russian River Chardonnay. You gotta be kiddin.