Learning to Spit

I grew up a tomboy in a neighborhood full of boys, four of whom were my brothers. I memorized sports statistics, played some outfield, and wore my bruised shins with pride. But the one thing I would never do was spit.

Spitting to me was offensive, disgusting, and messy, not to mention offensive, disgusting, and messy. Then I entered the wine trade where, as Neal Rosenthal so eloquently puts it in his book “Reflections of a Wine Merchant”: there is a sensual pleasure in the act if spitting. I don’t think he is referring to when one drools wine upon one’s shirt as I so often did in my early days of learning to taste

In the wine trade, spitting is an essential part of tasting. In order to taste and analyze a wine it is important to stave off the effects of alcohol that dull the senses and inhibit our ability to differentiate various tastes and aromas and to properly judge a wine’s quality. This means limiting the amount of wine you actually swallow.

Wine books dedicate pages on tasting technique, including spitting. Some of the more serious tomes have pages adorned with glossy photos of wine connoisseurs ejecting perfectly arched streams of wine into spittoons positioned at precarious distances.

Rosenthal says there is etiquette to spitting and that one should spit with flair and self -confidence, never drooling or dribbling or splattering. I admit to having committed these and other sins while spitting in a professional capacity.

I continue to work on my technique, searching out tips in books and online. The best information I have found comes from a 2002 Slate article written by Michael Steinberger titled “Cold Shower: How to Spit Wine Like the Pros.” In the article, Steinberger tells of his meeting with Daniel Johnnes, the wine director at Montrachet, who demonstrated a step-by-step spitting technique used by many professional sommeliers.

But what is most striking in this article is Johnnes’s revelation that among professional sommeliers there is competitiveness in the act of spitting. In fact, spitters are classified into three types: droolers, dribblers, and beeline spitters. There is also a list of esteemed “wine-hockers” that includes the likes of Robert Parker and Jancis Robinson (go Jancis!). 

I now realize that this world of spitting is no different from the scrappy days of my youth spent working on my fastball. And while I have a long way to go before I begin spitting like the rest of the boys, there is always the hope that I might someday spit it out of the park.

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