Tasting rooms offer tough-to-get wines under one roof

Mark Anthony / Nectar Tasting Room

A crowd mingles and drinks wine at the Nectar Tasting Room in Spokane, Wash.

By Elaine Porterfield, msnbc.com contributor

A wine tasting vacation sounds like a wonderful way to suss out unique, handcrafted vintages, or experience the fun of discovering a new boutique winery off the beaten path. The reality, though, often involves driving miles and miles between stops, irregular or appointment-only visiting hours at smaller wineries and the difficulty of comparing wines between various makers. Throw in the cost of staying at a wine country hotel, and you have a recipe for a sometimes less-than-satisfying getaway.

Enter the multiple winery tasting room, a kind of hybrid between a wine bar and a traditional winery. Whether in wine country or urban locations, these tasting rooms let wine lovers taste and compare wine from smaller or tiny wineries that might not be easily available to the public. Though exact statistics aren?t available, these tasting rooms seem to be growing in number, say those in the business. Most differ from traditional wine bars in that they typically emphasize education and tasting from a specific region, and often serve minimal food, such as cheese plates.

In 2002, Carolyn Lewis opened Locals in Geyersville, Calif., to allow people to try wines from the many small makers in the region. ?After I had moved out here from the East Coast, I kept finding the (small makers) to be closed to tasting or not available,? Lewis said. ?So I opened this so I could bring the really teeny guys into the spotlight.?

Locals specializes in flight tastings, which allow visitors to taste, for example, several zinfandels from different makers side by side, allowing them to easily discern what style they prefer. Many of the 10 wineries she showcases are tiny and rural, Lewis said: ?It?s a constant comment from our customers, ?We wish we could have found you first ? we don?t have to drive from place to place here.? ?

Furthermore, she works to keep it affordable; all tastings of the 70 wines currently offered are free and she strives to keep the markup on the bottles of wine she sells reasonable. ?You can easily be spending $25 for a tasting in Napa Valley? at just one winery nowadays, Lewis points out.

In Washington state, the second largest wine producing state in the nation after California, multiple winery tasting rooms are also popping up. At Spokane's Nectar Tasting Room, a cooperative between five wineries, education is key. Visitors to the tasting room are given an iPad to allow them to learn about the wines on offer and to keep records of their own likes and dislikes from visit to visit, said Josh Wade, the brainchild behind the venture. Wade, who also blogs about wine, says customers really enjoy the ability to easily compare a few of the 50 different Washington wines offered, available by the taste or by the glass.?

?People who are intimidated by wine or who just know enough to buy a bottle, this helps soften the experience,? Wade said. Nectar has been successful enough that there are plans to open a second location in mid-2012, in the Bavarian-themed town of Leavenworth in north central Washington, he said.

At the Tasting Room Yakima, which also has a location in Seattle?s historic Pike Place Market, customers love the ease of trying wines from several small Washington vintners and learning more about them, said manager Angela O?Connor.

?A lot of places don?t have nearly as many choices as we do,? O?Connor said. ?A lot of people we see are just getting started drinking wine or paying attention to varying types of wine or are just stuck in a rut of trying the same mass-produced wine. We can get some boutique producers in their hands here.?

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Source: http://itineraries.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/10/24/8470575-tasting-rooms-offer-tough-to-get-wines-under-one-roof

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