Forty-Five North Vineyard & Winery

Tasting Room

June 22, 2009

Steve Grossnickle, Owner

Dissecting the term, “Tasting Room”, requires deeper analysis of both “tasting” and “room.” Tasting, as in winery, is defined as the olfactory experience of sampling wine, and as a privileged taster at an event in Napa with a select number of Australian vintners, I experienced wine judges doing what they do best: gargling, sucking, aerating and a host of other rather uncouth mouth and airway movements that would possibly offend Emily Post. In short, they take wine apart with their mouths. And, as a physician, after investigating tasting and the olfactory experience of wine tasting, I have found that there are non-tasters, tasters and super tasters among us. These three classes of individuals, and you are one of them, have our parents and their DNA input into our makeup to thank for this. The super tasters are a group of people, less than 1%, who are able to determine tastes in the parts per trillion. For the non-tasters, let not your heart be troubled, flavors are still detected and mouth feel is perhaps magnified and therefore tannins tasteless to all become readily perceived, so enjoy what you like. The vast majority of us are just tasters, and we should be thankful, for a true super taster is probably disappointed each day that he is not at a five-star restaurant enjoying the hyper range of tastes that he is able to differenciate.

I was fortunate to be included with a host of judges at this event with a group of twenty Australian vintners and I was tasting with a super taster. At the third station, my super taster said, “do you taste the eucalyptus?” I cupped the glass, swirled the wine and pulled it deep into my lungs, but did not smell eucalyptus. The vintner was most impressed, saying that there were six parts per trillion of this and that he was the only judge picking that out. Now, I’m thinking eucalyptus, equating it with a childhood experience with Vick’s Vaporub, and turning my back, I splashed it on my chest and behind my ears and took two fingers dipped in wine shoving them up my nostrils. Short version: no eucalyptus! So I quickly was able to affirm my position in life as a plain, simple taster. At the twentieth station, however, tasting a Wolf Blass Syrah, I said this is a fabulous wine, and my friend said “congratulations”, it is the best wine in here.

All that said, we are in the midst of constructing our tasting room at Forty-Five North. The following photos document that, and I want to make sure that all know that they are welcome to visit regardless of their station in life as tasters, non, plain, and super.  Finally, as the ordinary taster, I would suggest that all, regardless of their DNA gene pool, enjoy what they like. Wine is a health drink and there is always “room for a tasting.”

Tasting Room was posted on June 22nd, 2009 at 5:20 PM and filed under Health and Updates.