Best Questions to ask at wine tasting?

Ask how many gophers he's killed so far this year. Seriously, that's your 'in'.

quote:

Originally posted by Ambiance:
I read here that it is wrong to waste the time of serious wine makers.

I'm not sure if I buy that or if it came from these boards as a serious answer. If you think wine makers would not appreciate your time as much as you appreciate theirs, then I would drink a different wine. I would think wine makers appreciate their customer's passion about their product more than the type of questions that are asked.

quote:

Originally posted by Ambiance:
I read here that it is wrong to waste the time of serious wine makers.

It's wrong to waste anyone's time. Well.....most anyone.

I've found most people involved in making wine to be very approachable, friendly and not needing a whole lot of questions to talk about their craft. And listen to Stefania Wine. Seriously.

PH

Whatever you do, don't come up with a list of questions that you think are important if you have no idea what you're asking. I don't know what you do but if you were meeting a surgeon, would you pretend you know about the different scalpels or suturing devices? Or if you were meeting a carpenter, would you pretend you knew about different table saws?

Phoney questions won't get you any respect from anyone in any walk of life. They'll just mark you as a phoney.

Just ask whatever comes to mind.

Or don't ask anything.

You won't be the first people who walked in and didn't know squat about wine or about the winery. They'll deal with it. If you're truly enthusiastic and you want to learn, they'll appreciate it a lot more than they'll appreciate some BS. That goes for most things in life.

best advice yet...thanks so much

quote:

Originally posted by GregT:
I don't know what you do but if you were meeting a surgeon, would you pretend you know about the different scalpels or suturing devices? Or if you were meeting a carpenter, would you pretend you knew about different table saws?

No, but I would ask about it if I was in the market for a scalpel or a saw. Since we are talking about wine, assuming more than one wine is being made here, wouldn't you want to know the differences between them? Wouldn't the natural thing to do is to ask?