Rinsing Glasses with Water in Tasting Rooms

It's okay to rinse if you also dry. You definitely do not want water in the glass. Sometime when tasting it is necessary to go backwards, though (like you said about dessert wine after red wine) and so the water is useful. I also sometimes rinse if sense too much of the previous wine in my glass after tasting. A droplet of water in the glass should not matter much. I also use the water to cleanse my palate between wines, especially if there are heavy tannins.

Dimitri

Salut Vino; I'll be interested in hearing what some of our finer European wine aficionados have to say on this subject but this New World, decidedly amateur taster usually only changes glasses when going from Whites to Reds. Otherwise, a thorough rinsing serves me well. I don't see where a drop or two of water will materially affect the next wine's taste. I can be convinced otherwise mind you but let's see what the group has to say.

While the finer European aficionados splash about the Med, I will put in my 0.02 Euros.

Sometimes you end up wanting to taste whites after a red, in that case I rinse with water to remove the colour, then I prime the glass with the new white, passing it around all the glasses, discarding it at the end. Otherwise, I find rinsing with water useless; with hard water like here in Provence, you end up making matters worse.

Mike

I'm with you. Unless the next wine to be tateed is more delicate than the previous one (usually not a problem in most tasting rooms), I just remove as much of the previous wine as I can and don't rinse. FWIW, when tasting in France, I can't recall anyone rinsing with water.

Mark Lipton

A couple of water droplets in a wine glass to me is much better esthetically than drinking from disposable paper cups. :-/

Mark E. Sievert A wine drinker in Missouri

I've spent time pouring in a tasting room where we provide those pitchers. When I'm asked the question "should I rinse", I say it's up to the but I ask them what they'd rather have their next wine diluted with, water or another wine? Also, recommended tasting orders are generally arranged so that IMO a little left over wine is less likely to influence the next wine on the list than water would be. As has already been mentioned, one exception to that might be when somebody finishes tasting reds and wants to go back and try a white. Even there, I think my primary objection is visual ;^) I'd guess well over

- Mark W.

Thats what we do ..our tap water has at times a slightly chlorinated taste that isnt very subtle. So like you said prime the glass and pass on to the next. We also do this at the begining of the tasting with the clean glass and clean carafe... as a primer ..Chris

I don't generally rinse between glasses, just give a good shake over the dump bucket. Although I often carry bottled water for ME to clear my palate from a particularly tannic or oaky wine. I will rinse before switching from red to white (with water if pourer doesn't offer to rinse/prime with white). The only reason I can thing of rinsing glasses between reds was once being poured a MASSIVELY corked (we must be talking 30 ppt) wine. I rinsed my glass four times. Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

Just being back from Italy my experiences are that more and more wineries in the better end are very serious in the efforts they do in the tasting rooms. Usually the rinse the glases first with water and thereafter they pour a little of the wine You ar going to taste in the glas to rinse it from water. Or they ar presenting You for a whole battery of glasses ( I think 7 or 8 different glasses was the maximum I've seen this year ).

regards Jan

Any time that I'm served a corked wine, I try to get a new glass entirely. Then again, I'm one of those long-suffering TCA sensitives...

Mark Lipton

Yes indeed, rinsing with (and then discarding) the wine about to be tasted is the thing to do. I rarely do this going from red to red, but I do find that the winemaker often does, if he's really interested in what I think.

Splashing about the Med indeed. It was practically 40 C here yesterday; and in Normandy swimming pools are a rarity... Blessedly a bit cooler today. Note to self: sell all assets, pawn wife and kids, move to air conditioned condo in St Raph.

-E