Questions you ask on a winery tour/tasting visit?

I’m heading out to Napa in a few days and was curious to hear from other Berserkers what questions they ask on their winery visits. So Berserkers…

What are your favorite questions to ask when you visit a winery? What helps you better appreciate how they’re unique that you can’t get just from tasting at home?

In Napa? My first question is usually how many of your bottles does Alfert’s wife buy every year? And how many for the poolboy?

Always ask them what else they are pouring besides what you’ve been poured.

Always also ask if they have anything from their library open to sample.

As far as other questions, are they working on anything new?

I usually will ask a question about the recent vintages and how the vintages vary in the bottle, also what to look forward to with wine currently in barrel.

How do the fires impact the wine operation now with power being cut by PG&E?

I always ask the host what they drink at home besides the wine from the winery. This is usually a fun question because it lets you know what they drink.

Like many of the job interviews I’ve led over the years with prospective hires, I learn a lot from winemakers when I ask this question:

What’s a noteworthy mistake you’ve made professionally and what did you learn from it?

That’s obviously not first question you ask …

Also: I like to ask them what wines they drink with family/friends — other than their own — and why.

Where’s the heliport?

For me, it depends on the individual wines. If I like or dislike a wine, I’ll ask questions about the way it was made. Usually, I go to places whose wines I like, or that I’ve heard good things about, so I have some idea of what they’re up to.

What interests you? That’s the best place to start. Read up on the places you plan to visit and see what questions you have after that.

Be aware that most tasting room staffs – particularly at larger wineries – are trained to recite the marketing pitch, so unless you ask unique questions, you’re likely to be met with a scripted answer, full of cliches (“it’s all in the vineyards,” “we’re very careful about when we pick,” “only the best barrels,” blah, blah, blah). Some are just pourers and don’t have any deep knowledge.

But there are also so very informed people who are happy when they encounter someone who’s really curious. A retired Army sergeant who worked at Dry Creek Vineyards in Sonoma was enormously informative about the individual vineyards and wines when I visited a couple of years ago. And, of course, at smaller places, you’re more likely to encounter someone who is also involved in the winemaking and just happens to be pouring. Cathy Corison was there when I visited her winery eight or ten years ago.

John is giving you excellent and realistic advice. Don’t expect too much from the people who will pour the wine for you, but welcome and be grateful for the occasional special experience. Enjoy.

Root stock
Clonal selections
Oak treatment
*assuming winemaker, assistant winemaker etc.

We ask for recommendations for other wineries to visit. That worked very well on our last trip.

I know it’s normal, but I always felt kind of weird doing it, as they’re the competition.

If I’m in a region I’m not super familiar with, I ask about food! I love wine, but find the nuanced details of root stock, soil types, etc, etc, etc. to be a bit much for me personally. Hearing where folks like grabbing tacos, casual dinner or something special is way more fun for me personally.

A few that usually get good responses:

1. What was the titratable acidity of this wine?

2. Have you been tested for STDs and what were the results?

3. Are you satisfied with the quality of the lactones you’re extracting?

4. Do you like threesomes?

5. Do you measure your acetaldehyde enzymatically or by LC?

This way you’ll be armed with a variety of questions and all of the answers will be deeply meaningful.

OTOH, rather than ask for scripted questions, you can just have a real conversation.

Everybody we asked was more than happy to recommend another winery. One sent us to Mending Wall and actually called ahead for us.

“OTOH, rather than ask for scripted questions, you can just have a real conversation”

bingo!

Where do you like to go out to eat? (a local’s opinion means so much more than someone that’s been there for a few days on holiday that got board recommendations to begin with)

Any new experiments/projects currently in the works? What projects failed, why?

Nah. There’s so much cooperation and cross pollination. This is the best way to get recs on what’s most exciting, and may be off the radar. Same with food recs, as Andrew notes.

I ask about the amount of Mega Purple and oak chips used in making the wine, how much they pay Wine Spectator to inflate their scores, how much Syrah they sneak into their pinot noir, and stuff like that.

Ha! Actually, I usually avoid asking questions, I usually just try to have a conversation, throwing out observations as I taste the wine, which will usually generate responses that will answer whatever questions you might have asked.

Are your wines distributed to my home state?
Anything you have exclusive to the tasting room that I won’t be able to find in a store or restaurant?

And I bet you get given a lot of free wine with questions like that.