Every Monday I throw out a challenge to the readers. Something to think about during the week of wine work.

This week: become conscious of TMI, too much information. 

Over-explaining and over-detailing a wine is all too common. I see it all the time when reps are trying to train the servers at a restaurant, and I see it all the time when a winery rep is presenting a wine to me. I even see it on the tech sheets … paragraph after paragraph and line after line of stuff I really don’t need to know.

This week, figure our the core message of what you need to say about each wine you present. Then, challenge yourself to say nothing more. Zip it.

Why is this important? Quite simple.

The more you tell somebody about something, the more opportunities they have to find a reason to not invest in it.

An example: A wine tasting can be going very well, with interaction and lots of nodding, the Pinot Noir you are tasting is firing on all cylinders … and then you mention the alcohol content is 14.8%. You can hear the brakes get hit.

Another example: You’re tasting a delicious Chardonnay from Willamette Valley. The wine is crisp and racy, bright with acidity. But then you mention it’s actually 100% barrel fermented and 100% malolactic fermentation. The brakes get hit again.

In both cases the wine was being enjoyed without the information. It’s giving too much info that suddenly shifted the conversation.

Only talk as much as you have to. Find the key points and stories to convey. Then shut up and let the wine do the talking.