Cellar Door Etiquette Short Course- Part 1 For Visitors

PART 1: For Cellar Door Visitors

 

 

Winery Cellar Doors can be one of the most exciting wine experiences a lot of people may ever have,,,or leave a bitter taste, even turning people off a winery, region or off wine in general.

 

After many years of visiting cellar doors all around Australia and Europe as well as running a successful boutique cellar door in the Hunter Valley for over a year now, I feel the need to have some guidelines set out, some unwritten laws which need to be written!

As with anything where the purchase of goods is involved, there are always 2 to tango: the customer and the vendor. The only thing with a cellar door is that it is generally not an everyday experience and a little lack of information on how to go about it.

That being the case, I thought I might throw up some golden 5 rules for both sides which, in my opinion, make or break a cellar door visit. This is broken into 2 blog entries. Part 1- For Visitors which will be closely followed by      Part 2- For Cellar Door Staff.

5 Golden Rules for Visitors:

1) Cellar Doors Are Not Free Bars

The Cellar Door of a winery is a wine producers direct shop. As such, it only exists if it sells wine to the people who visit. If you have the intention just to drive around all day to wineries with the purpose of just drinking for free, you wont make many friends with cellar door staff. It is like taking a joy ride in every car at the local dealership just for fun.

“I”ll do a tasting” does not mean “I will have some free drinks”. If you want a good experience it should mean “I am interested in this place enough that I would like to try some of those wines to help decide what I might like to take home with me”. After all, almost every cellar door only exists to sell wine.

General etiquette is: in most cases budget to buy at least one wine at every stop if not more, or don´t go. I know a lot of places are generally a little let down by a purchase of less than 3 bottles. The idea is: why come all this way just to get one bottle?

There should be something there. If you can’t find anything you like personally, think of wines which you could give as gifts. Most cellar doors will have a style of wine you would not normally have tried, or have wines you can’t get anywhere else.

It is the chance to become part of something special, to be part of what are generally small family owned businesses, a place where you are not just handing over your hard earned money to a massive conglomerate, a place where you can share with friends stories of visiting “your winery”. This is something not possible at bottle shops. Which leads to…

2) Cellar Doors Are Not There Just for Promotion:

Recently I had a fine wine manager at Dan Murphys Liqour Store tell me: “ahhh cellar doors are only for promotion anyway, customers go for fun then buy off us”. Although many people may think this, for almost every cellar door it is 100% incorrect. While cellar doors are a great form of promotion, as noted, they only exist if they sell wine. No sales = no cellar door.

A cellar door generally provides you not only with the chance to try wines you might not find elsewhere, but also allows intimate insights into the people, history, place and inspiration of the wines you are trying. This is an intimate experience that no wine shop can offer, one whose extra running cost sometimes is reflected in a few dollars difference in price to big discounting wine shops. Many times not.

This is why many many people join wine clubs and consistently buy wine from cellar doors not per bottle, but fill their cars with cases. Many places will also offer case deals such as 13 to the dozen, or even match any advertised price on their wines by the discounters if you just ask.

“Thanks, I will look out for that in the bottle shops” is a no go. Instead, follow etiquette and buy at least a bottle as per step 1, and say thank you for the experience.

The stupidest one I have heard was: “We are up here for the weekend in wine country, but can’t buy anything because we stocked up at Dan Murphys on the way here”. WTF? Do you buy KFC and then go to restaurants too?

Etiquette: Do not go to cellar doors with the intention of buying your wine at the local bottle shop.

3) Be Polite:

You are being offered, generally, a free service. Be polite and respect the general rules of courtesy.

Do not ask personal questions which you wouldn’t ask the staff, say, at your local bank. You wouldn’t stop them when they are explaining your accounts with questions like “Great, so how long have you worked here?”, talk over them to your friends or even just walk away mid sentence to look at a painting. Asking personal questions of strangers without being invited is generally not polite in most forums, no matter how social the cellar door may seem.

Say please and thank you, and give requests, not demands: “Can I please try the xxxx?” is always received better than “Gimme the next one!”

Be patient! Sometimes it can get quite busy and the cellar door staff may have to deal with others, and murphys law will have it that these sudden busy waves of visitors are always the times you have the least staff around.

Rule of thumb: Just be polite, patient and don’t ask personal things you wouldn’t ask your doctor.

4) Nobody Likes Wine Snobs

Cellar Door people do not care how much or little you know about wine, we will figure that ourselves quite quickly. It really is of no interest to us and we are not impressed.

One of the afflictions of wine for most people interested in wine are “wine snobs”. Do not confuse wine snobs with wine nerds. Wine nerds are interested in wine, wine snobs are solely interested in making themselves feel superior through wine. Wine nerds show interest in the wine in front of them, wine snobs talk about themselves and other wines they have tried.

Nobody is impressed if you go to a winery and rattle off a list of wines you normally drink which you think are superior. Winery staff are also not impressed by the fact you might have a friend who has some vines and you helped pick. Listen, ask questions and refer to the part “Be Polite”.

Nobody is impressed when you turn up your nose with “it’s young isn’t it, I never drink anything less than 10 years and French”…oh wow, you can read the tasting list.

Nobody thinks higher of you because you are enquiring into the pH of the wine at harvest or the forest where the French oak comes from. The person at cellar door will either say they don’t know or make something up because it is really not that important unless you’re a winemaker yourself. And even winemakers don’t ask those questions at cellar door.

NOBODY really wants to hear your complete private tasting note and thoughts on the wine when asked “What do you think?”. We really don’t care. What is really being asked is “Do you like that perhaps enough to want to buy some?”

We normally know the winemaker and have tried the wine enough to know what it tastes like, we are not impressed by you whiffing and slurping around for 10 minutes noting “I’m getting hints of African dorango spice and michaelangelo cherries”.

Etiquette: Listen, be open and just taste the wines. We can pick the true experts by their polite asking of questions, simple note taking, polite requests to try specific wines, and not giving personal opinion unless pressed for it.

5) Things NOT To Say:

– “Let’s just start at the top and go through” – The first line of a time waster, or tyre kicker as we call them. You have basically just said to us “I have no interest in any of your wines specifically and would like to drink as much alcohol as I possibly can for free please”.

At least pick out something that sounds familiar and ask to start with that and DO NOT try more than 5-6 wines at any one place, even if they have 50 wines on tasting.

– “Can I just get your order form and I will think about it later” – We call these people “Order Form Collectors”, a species of Tyre Kickers. We know this is generally a lie because if you were interested in the wine, you would get it now.

– “Must be difficult working at a place like this!”- We hear this at least 20 times every single day. A simple “Hi, how are you?” works just fine.

– “Oh I cant taste a thing, I’ve already had enough wine today”- Really?

And you came to another winery?

I am sure that there are many other things which could make the list and please comment if you have  any others.

If you are a cellar door worker and laughing right now,,,hold up!

Part 2 (Coming Soon) will deal with my 5 golden rules for cellar door staff.