Just a couple of weeks ago, I experienced an “out of the tasting room” pouring event called Hospice du Rhone (a.k.a. HdR). Last year I was at this event in a volunteer capacity, and was amazed at the turnout of people. This event features wines made from Rhone varietals, and there are 22 types of grapes that are allowed in wines from the Rhone area of France. HdR brings winemakers from across the world, and my tasting experience, which I’ll get to in a bit, spanned from Paso Robles, California to Sonoita, Arizona to the Cote Rotie and Chateauneuf du Pape regions in France.

I was excited to be on the pouring/winery side of the table for Denner Vineyards this year and interact with a lot of people trying our wines. We also had bottles of SanTasti chilled and ready to pour for folks because lots of tasting = ripe opportunity to have a dead palate. The doors were opened and in came the event attendees. It seemed to me that this year’s attendance was down. I remembered last year and since the table we were pouring at was right in range of seeing people walk into the hall we all were in, I could tell there were less people. All the same, we kept busy and we were slinging SanTasti to just about everyone that walked up to us. I kept politely insisting “please cleanse your palate before we start tasting.” And they did. Some would say “Oh yea! I need that!” or “Oh, how does this work?” with curiosity and/or enthusiasm about something new.

If I could tell they just had a red wine (the glass never lies) and they wanted to try our white I would say “Let’s get your palate cleansed and reset to go back to white” and everyone would and many would say “Oh! That’s great. I do feel clean.” We know.

Andrew & Nicole were busy. I escaped our table to taste a bit and I carried a whole bottle just for me around. I wanted a clean palate, and a little guerrilla marketing never hurt anyone. Wines from Paso Robles, Arizona and even from France, all tasted great. I blew through 10 tables in about an hour…about 30 wines tasted without a hitch. And, I really don’t mean for this to sound like a commercial, but now more than ever, I wonder how in the world it is that people taste anything after wine 5, 6, 7 or beyond without this palate cleanser.

HdR was great – the lower attendee count meant elbow room for everyone, which gave everyone time to try wines and interact more with wineries pouring…which, as a consumer education fanatic, was great to see and experience. 6 pm was cutoff time and we had our “test patron” come at 6:03 asking for wine to which I declined to pour. There was no way I was going to jeopardize our and HdR’s licenses to pour – she could have been from the ABC. Frank and I packed up and booked SanTasti to pour at our tasting room on the Saturday of Wine Festival for a demo…we can’t get enough of the stuff! And me? I’m all about enhancing the consumer’s opportunity to learn more through a clean palate.