Designate a driver – Even a little wine can impair motor skills; a designated driver enables you to enjoy yourself all day without endangering others.

Pace yourself – Slowly savoring a small amount of each wine you sample not only helps maintain sobriety, it also helps you fully appreciate the wine. Drinking water between sips helps in this regard, too, as does spitting out all or most of the wine. This is common practice among professional wine tasters and one that all wineries accommodate by providing spit buckets on the tasting bar. Just make sure no one is in your line of fire before expectorating!

Leave the cologne and perfume at home – The strong scents of perfume, cologne and hand lotions interfere with the ability to smell wine, so do yourself and others a favor and leave them at home.

Good manners – Good manners are essential in our tasting rooms – i.e., no raised voices, elbowing people out of the way to get to the tasting bar or insulting other tasters or tasting room staff. The nicer you are, the better our wines will taste. Really!