Pinotblogger: the Capozzi Winery blog

As a companion to the previous post on making wine standards, and in an attempt to further promote the Hospices of Sonoma Pinot event later this month, below are excerpts from a fun article on spitting when wine tasting.

Note: In this post I’m going to quote liberally from David Darlington’s hilarious article “The Spitting Image: How Wine Fanciers Express Themselves Through Expectoration.” I fear that I have quoted too much for fair use purposes, but I’m unable to find a copy of this online anywhere, which is a terrible shame. In any event, the following excerpts are Copyright 2003 Copia.

“The Scene is a model of genteel refinement: a roomful of discerning gentlemen and ladies, well-heeled adults elegantly attired, sitting at tables draped in white linen, each person pacing an arc of glasses partially filled with red or gold liquid, specially shaped to showcase the best qualities of the beverages under consideration. The silent participants take copious notes, scribbling expertly as they examine each wine - peering at its color against the light, swirling the liquid to release its perfume, raising the glass slowly to the nostrils and finally taking a sip into the mouth, holding it there for some seconds while working the oral tissues to unlock every nuance.”

“Finally when the character of the noble elixir has been exhaustively apprehended, the enophile purses his or her lips and propels a glistening stream of sputum into a foaming pitcher of spit, the contents seething with saliva discolored by the digestive process. What’s wrong with this picture? Nothing at all. Spitting may be greeted with censure in most sectors of Western society, but in the wine world the opposite is true. As Jeff Prather - managing director Azalea Springs Winery in Napa, and a former senior merchant for wine.com - attests, ‘Public spitting suffers from the stigma of lower-class, tobacco-chewing behavior. But in the context of wine tasting, spitting is not only acceptable; it’s preferable…”

“The idea, of course, is to avoid getting drunk. ‘If you spit out every mouthful,’ advises English wine journalist Jancis Robinson in her book How to Taste, ‘you’ll be amazed at how much more legible you tasting notes are…”

“The Wine Advocate’s Robert M. Parker states the case more succinctly. ‘If I didn’t spit,’ Parker avows, ‘I’d be dead.‘…”

“…[T]he higher one travels in the world of wine, the greater status is assigned to expectoration. For the recent initiate, even the common consumer, spitting wine out is nonsensical; why bother with alcoholic beverages at all if not to enjoy their effects? For the professional, though, inebriation ranks lowest on a wine’s list of attributes - especially when it impedes one’s ability to appreciate the others.”

“‘Nothing tips off professionals to the presence of a novice more quickly than a dry spit bucket,” discloses Jeff Prather, and Michael Micheli - tasting room manager for the Robert Mondavi - Confirms that, “To be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone spit on a public tour.’ Tom Maresca, a New York wine writer recalls a tasting attended by some representatives of the Beaurea of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms - who swallowed everything that they tasted. “The rest of us found it rather amusing that these people, who were in charge of regulating the industry, all got drunk,’ Maresca remembers.”

Part 2 tomorrow…