Tasty tastings

Rules around adver­tis­ing alco­hol are pret­ty strict. That’s why High­ball, Welling­ton’s first spir­its & cock­tail fes­ti­val, was not able to tell you that for your $50 entry fee, you would absolute­ly be able to get your mon­ey’s worth of drunk in free sam­ples. So instead it looked like you’d pay a lot of mon­ey to have to buy more cock­tails, and it was hard to see the ben­e­fit, if you’re a casu­al drink enjoy­er, rather than a com­pletist. But now you know for next year! Make sure you eat before you go, even though there is food for sale, because you can try some­thing like 20 kinds of gin and many kinds of whisky and oth­er things, and a full stom­ach is a good idea before that.

Wine tast­ings have the same adver­tis­ing restric­tions, so I’m going to sing their prais­es instead. Pinot­palooza, which is on tomor­row, is doing bet­ter with their adver­tis­ing when they say “no tokens!”, which means you’re free to try as many wines as you like. I think they’re try­ing to appeal to a young crowd with this atti­tude, which is great. There are some oth­er wine tast­ings that I’d like to rec­om­mend to you as well, if you like wine.

Get on the Nego­ciants Fine Wine tour list. This was an event in July, but last night they had an Inter­na­tion­al Wine event, and it real­ly is a good time. Lots of tables all around the room with wine­mak­ers stand­ing behind them (or some­times mar­ket­ing staff), and you rock on up and say “may I taste that one please?” and you get to ask all the ques­tions you like about vin­tages or grapes or ter­roir or the labels. Last night I learnt a whole lot about Mal­bec when ask­ing about the Cate­na Zap­a­ta Mal­bec label, which tells the sto­ry of the wine rot in France but how vines in oth­er coun­tries were unaf­fect­ed (which is why the world’s old­est Grenache vines can be found in Aus­tralia, sur­pris­ing­ly). Usu­al­ly the wine­mak­ers are very hap­py to talk to peo­ple who might be new to wine and don’t know yet what they like. Usu­al­ly.

Anoth­er great event is the Hawkes Bay Wine Cel­e­bra­tion next Wednes­day. $50 gets you the oppor­tu­ni­ty to try 200 wines (you will not man­age to taste ALL the wines, so choose wise­ly — I gen­er­al­ly skip sav blancs for exam­ple cos I sel­dom like them). There is of course host respon­si­bil­i­ty — there’s food, lots of water and wines are poured out in tiny tastes. But there are so very many of them, so it’s def­i­nite­ly not an event to bring your car to.

And final­ly, just some tips

• Even though there will be food, make sure you eat before you go.
• You do not need to be a wine expert to enjoy these events. Being inter­est­ed in learn­ing a lit­tle more about wine and a thirst is all you need.
• Don’t be afraid to ask ques­tions.
• Tip out wine you don’t like — you don’t need to make a big song and dance about it, but you don’t need to fin­ish it either.
• Make room at the tast­ing tables for peo­ple behind you.
• Bring your friends  — it’s fun to learn what they like vs what you like.
• If you’ve nev­er heard of a grape, you should def­i­nite­ly taste it.
• Sign up for the mail­ing lists of wines you love so you can get sweet deals on case prices.
• Take snap­shots of the bot­tles you love so you can remem­ber them in the morn­ing!