Livermore wineries hosted a nice harvest festival on Sunday and Monday of Labor Day Weekend.  The weather was perfect and the wineries worked hard to make the event interesting with food vendors and live music at most of the locations.

However, almost half the wineries hosted loud nightclub type bands.  In some instances we could not hear anything the tasting bar staff was trying to tell us.  To preserve our hearing for later life and to only taste what we would enjoy, we promptly left without tasting.  We heard other complaints. We certainly don’t feel compelled to ever visit those wineries again.

There seems to be enough neurological research evidence to support the statement that senses cross influence each other.  Hearing can affect taste.  Overloaded senses such as hearing can also overload taste. Those senses are near each other in the brain and somewhat connected.

Loud bands have the following effects and should never be paired with wine tasting:

1. Taste is greatly impacted and sensitivity reduced.
2. People can’t have real conversations.
3. Hearing is damaged.

We attend wine events to enjoy wine and, equally important, to met other people.  Loud music ruins the experience.  If folks want to drink fine wine in a nightclub they can go to downtown San Jose on a Friday or Saturday night and blow their ears off.

Several wineries such as Concannon, Tenuta, and Garre had wonderful groups that created a pleasant background music.

- jim