Drunk and Stupid No Way To Taste Wines

After managing to overcome the obstacles of new vines, fast-draining soil and fickle climate, the North Fork wineries are now struggling to handle crowds who are looking more for a good time than a good wine, who are interested in quaffing quickly whatever is open without regard to vintage or fermentation.

Feeling the sting of its own success, the nascent wine region is battling an ugly image — one pourer called the scene “slobs and snobs” — that detracts from the charm of the boutique wineries that are just over an hour’s drive from New York City. On any given Saturday, stretch limousines and tour buses jam otherwise bucolic Route 25, which snakes through sleepy towns, sprawling farmland and roadside vegetable stands.

In response to the raucous behavior, more associated with that South Fork bastion known as the Hamptons, almost all of the wineries have ended free tastings and now generally charge $5 for a flight of carefully measured samples. (Palmer is one of the few still pouring without charge, if only for selected wines.) Many tasting rooms have banned bachelorette parties and tightened cutoff policies on serving the inebriated. Raphael vineyards in Peconic has closed its tasting room on Saturdays except by appointment.

The North Fork is not the only wine-producing region in the state to have problems with rowdy tasters who arrive by limousine or bus. In New York — the nation’s third-largest producer of wine grapes, after California and Washington State, according to the United States Commerce Department — wineries in the Finger Lakes region have created the Safe Group Wine Tours Initiative. The program issues warnings to groups that are considered out of control and will bar repeat offenders, according to The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

These out of control types are going to ruin a good experience for those who want to be able to taste the wines they hope to purchase. The wineries have to struggle to stay afloat in a very competitive market, and a nice tasting room experience will lure in people who are willing to buy wines. If you've got a rowdy crowd, you'll turn away those people, who will go elsewhere. The wineries are doing what they have to in order to protect their investment.