A gate, not a shop#
Most of the cellars I take guests to do not have a shop. They have a gate, a dog, and a person who was doing something else five minutes ago. In Chardakhi, in Kartli, Georgia, the tasting room is the family courtyard. In the cellar lanes of South Moravia, Czechia, half an hour from my flat in Brno, it is a door in a grass-roofed hill with the winemaker’s car parked outside. The etiquette of a winery visit comes down to remembering this: you are a guest in someone’s workplace, and often in their home.
I have stood on both sides of that gate, first in restaurant kitchens where winemakers came to us, and for years now as the person bringing eight strangers to a cellar at 10:00 on a Tuesday. This is what that has taught me.
Book, and say who you are#
Almost every estate worth visiting works by appointment. Visitor centres exist and are useful: Old Bridge in Yeghegnadzor has a restaurant and rooms, Voskevaz in Aragatsotn a karas hall and a museum. But the cellars that make the wines you came for are usually a family with a phone. Write a week ahead in the Caucasus, two or three in France and Italy in high season; Pheasant’s Tears in Kakheti asks for one or two days’ notice, and that is the quick end of the scale.
Say how many you are and why you want to come. “We drink your Tsitska in Prague and would like to see where it is made” opens more doors than “we are touring the area”. Be honest about numbers: two people fit in a cellar where ten do not, and a winemaker who expected four and gets nine has a right to be annoyed.
Avoid harvest unless you have been invited to pick: from late August into October small estates work sixteen-hour days and many close to visitors. August in France is holiday month, and Sundays are family days almost everywhere. Confirm the day before, arrive on time, and if you cannot come, say so; a no-show costs a small producer half a morning.
The first ten minutes#
Park where you are told, not where the tractor turns. Greet the dog, which will be there, and let it decide about you. Wear shoes you can wash; cellars are wet and vineyards are mud. Leave perfume at the hotel; a cellar smells of fermenting must and the winemaker is smelling it all day.
Wait to be invited into the cellar, and keep your hands off barrels, qvevri lids and bottles unless they are handed to you. Ask before photographing a person, a label or a price list; not every wine in a cellar is for sale, or even finished. Then put the phone away. Someone who spent a year on a wine notices when you look up.
A greeting in Georgian, Czech or French changes the temperature of the room; I translate on tour, but I make my guests say hello themselves.
Spitting, swallowing and pace#
In a working cellar, spitting is normal and nobody minds; ask where. If ten wines are coming, spit most of them and swallow the two you want to remember. The mechanics are in how to taste like a sommelier. Do not pour a wine away in front of the person who made it, do not grimace, and do not rate wines aloud. If a bottle is faulty, say so quietly and let the host pour another.
Let the winemaker set the pace. In a Moravian cellar the koštýř, the long glass pipette, fills one glass from one cask at a time, and that rhythm is the visit. In a Kakhetian marani the lid comes off one qvevri and everyone waits. Hurrying through the range is the fastest way to be shown the door, politely.
Questions worth asking#
Winemakers are tired of “which is your best wine” and never tired of talking about their work. Ask when they picked and why that day. Ask how old the vines are and what is under them. Ask what the wine fermented in, for how long, and what happened between harvest and bottling. Ask about sulfur without making it an accusation: “how do you decide on sulfur” gets an honest answer where “is this natural” gets a defensive one. Ask what they drink at home and what they cook with this wine. Every vintage has a story; ask for it.
A few subjects stay closed: what the land cost, what they earn, why the neighbour’s wine is cheaper, what another producer said about them, scores and medals. In Armenia and Georgia, leave regional politics at the border; your host will steer the conversation where it can go.
At the table: supra and sklípek#
In the Caucasus the table is the visit. A Georgian supra is led by a tamada, the toastmaster, and the Kakheti guide has the detail: wine is drunk after a toast and not between toasts, glasses are touched, and a toast to the dead is drunk without clinking. A guest is forgiven for sipping, never for talking over a toast. At Iago Bitarishvili’s cellar in Chardakhi, where two Chinuri from qvevri come to a lunch from the family kitchen, the table is the lesson. At Ramaz Nikoladze’s marani in Imereti there is no tasting room at all, only a garden table under a tree.
In a Moravian sklípek the host pours from the cask and the plate is bread, lard, škvarky and smoked meat. Eat what is offered, drink water between glasses, and stay as long as the host is enjoying it and no longer. A visit booked for an hour that is still going at three is a compliment, and also a day’s work lost.
Buying wine at the cellar door#
If there is no tasting fee, buying is how you say thank you, and even where there is one, a few bottles are the natural end of a good visit. Buy what you liked, not what you think you should, and do not ask for a discount: the cellar-door price is usually set so as not to undercut the shops that carry the wine, and haggling insults both. Some estates will not sell at all because their wines are allocated years ahead; asking twice is not charming. Some sell only a bottle or two per person, which is generosity, not meanness.
Czech cellars almost all take cards, Georgian and Armenian villages want cash in lari or dram, and some small French domaines prefer cash or a bank transfer. Ask before you assume.
Paid tastings are standard in Burgundy and Champagne and rarer in the Jura, Beaujolais and the Loire. In Moravia a small fee or a purchase is expected in the cellar lanes of Velké Bílovice and Bořetice; in Georgia, small-estate tastings are priced per person and booked ahead. That is not a reason to feel awkward; it is how a family with three hectares stays one.
Getting the wine home#
Wine cannot go in hand luggage where the 100 ml liquid rule applies, so it goes in the hold, wrapped, or it ships. Within the EU, wine for your own use travels freely; the indicative guideline is 90 litres. Entering the EU from Georgia or Armenia, the allowance is 4 litres of still wine per adult, so there I buy for the table and carry home a few bottles that mean something.
Low-sulfur wines dislike heat and shaking: keep them out of a hot car and let them rest a week before opening. Italian estates ship routinely, French ones rarely, and in the Caucasus you carry it or drink it there. From Moravia you drive it home. I bring padded sleeves, and I tell guests that the bottle they will remember is almost always the one they drank with the person who made it.
Thanking#
A short message the next day, with a photograph if you took one, is worth more than a review; if you do write one, make it true and specific. If you were fed at a family table, a small gift from home is the right gesture; in Georgia and Armenia hospitality is not billed and money would land wrongly. In restaurants a tip of around 10 per cent is normal in Armenia, and in Georgia you check whether service is already on the bill. Tip the driver, who has been drinking water all day.
Driving#
One rule I do not bend. In Czechia the alcohol limit for drivers is zero. France, Italy and Austria allow 0.5 g/l, which two glasses will take you past. On my tours nobody drives. A minibus with a driver is part of every route, and it is the reason the last cellar of the day can be tasted as honestly as the first.
On tour#
I book every cellar and brief the group in the minibus on what to expect at the next gate. Groups are six to ten because that is what a family cellar can hold and still feel like a visit rather than a delivery. As two or four, a private tour can take you into cellars that never see a group. The Kakheti qvevri tour and the South Moravia weekend test these manners most; the FAQ has the practical details.
The short version, if you remember nothing else: book, arrive on time, let the host lead, ask about the work, buy a bottle, and say thank you the next day.
