The Tasting Room

Since moving to Napa nearly eighteen months ago, I have become closely acquainted with the tasting room. These can range in style from a casual lounge bar to cold sheds to a more formal, appointment-only setting. Nearly every winery has to have an area to greet customers, as on-site sales form an important part of their business. For the first few months I was here, I visited many tasting rooms, forming a view of California's wine culture through not just the wines themselves but the personalities and knowledge of those working in the tasting rooms. Then I got a job working in a tasting room, giving me a view from the other side. These are some of the things I've learnt about tasting rooms and American drinking habits.

the varietal

Americans use the word varietal interchangeably as adjective and noun - Chardonnay is a varietal, rather than a variety - and the varietal wine rules large. "I don't like blends" is a phrase often heard in the tasting room (the Californian rule for varietal wines is that it must be made from only 75% of that variety, meaning that many varietal wines are in actual fact blends). Those winemakers who wish to move away from varietal wines to more complex blends face an uphill struggle to convince customers that a wine isn't just about one grape variety (though one way to do that is to make a blend so expensive that customers will assume the wine is beyond criticism). The addiction to varietal wines also leads to set opinions that are hard to budge: "I don't like Chardonnay," is another frequent phrase heard (23% of wine sold in the US is single-varietal Chardonnay), followed by a refusal to taste anything made from Chardonnay.

sweetness

"Do you have any sweet wines?" is a question I am often asked, usually by someone from an older generation. I speculate that this continued fondness for sweet wines comes from the taste for underfermented wine developed during Prohibition. It's certainly remarkable how many drinkers don't like anything that isn't sweet, leading to the popularity of "port" (locally made fortified wine that doesn't care for any international naming rules) and White Zinfandel. Wines that are dry but have ripe fruit flavours are often mistaken for being sweet, and it's hard to explain that sweetness in a wine comes from sugar.

the bachelorette party

It used to be the stag group, but is there anything more horrific than a bachelorette party (a hen night in the UK)? A group of young women, all scantily clad with an obligatory large sun hat to protect the exposed skin, being driven around in a limousine, while drinking copious amounts of wine all day long. They're shrill, deafening, drunk, and often very rude: having to deal with them is not quite what I got into wine for.

the walk-ins

Both Napa and Sonoma each have nearly 500 wineries. The main reason people from across the country visit the two counties is to go to the tasting rooms and taste wine, yet there are people who come with no interest in wine whatsoever. They drive all the way to a winery, walk in and say they're just having a look; or they just want to buy some merchandise as a momento of their visit to wine country (branded coasters are very popular); or they may be a couple who have had an argument and realise they want to spend even less time together in public than they do in a car. "Do you want to taste some wine?" I ask. "Not today." It's rather like going to an art gallery and not wanting to look at the art.

the vines

autumn vines

In quieter moments, I look up from the tasting room and see Zinfandel vines planted in the 1940s. They're beautiful, with their thick trunks, bushy canopies, individually planted rather than on trellises. There are even a couple of rows planted in the 1880s. They speak of California's history, when it was still young and developing, and of the European immigrants who helped establish the wine industry. Here they still are, rather humbling, and a reminder of the intimate connection between wine and nature.

spitting

It doesn't happen. The wine is there to be drunk, not merely tasted. To spit or pour away the wine is a waste: "my father would turn in his grave if he saw me pouring good wine away."

the British accent

John Peel, the late British radio DJ, first made his name in the US in the early 1960s by exaggerating his Liverpool accent to take advantage of the British Invasion led by the Beatles. My British accent is likewise an advantage: Americans assume I am knowledgeable, erudite even, and to be trusted. It's a little embarrassing, but what can I do?

the locals

These are the people who have seen Napa and Sonoma change from small rural communities into internationally recognised wine regions. They remember jug wine, collecting it as children for their parents; they've ridden horses and seen funeral processions go through the vineyards; they recall the personalities who have shaped California wine, some of them famous, some of them unknown. They show how young, yet how rich, California's history is.