You don’t have to like everything that’s poured for you, first.  And secondly, be open to everything.  Even the wines and/or varietals you’re thinking you may not take to.  That’s why they call it tasting.  And, be gracious to the person pouring.  Wine tasting is that glaring— wine, tasting.  Taste everything.  And if there’s something you don’t dig, be discrete about your affinity lack for that one-and-a-half ounce, or whatever-splash.  Fighting the flight isn’t merely telling the person on the other Side of the bar you’d rather taste something else or that you don’t want to do the SB, or the Chard, or the Pinot, or the-whatever.  What this note advocates is to try everything.

And, honestly, you don’t HAVE TO try everything on the flight, but I offer, “Why resist it?” Why not see if you’re wrong?  I love meeting people that want to act all wine expert-y and so eager to offer their opinion but then when the next wine’s to b e poured, a Merlot say, they’ll declare, “No… no, I don’t like Merlot.” How do you know?  I always want ask but being the one pouring I keep with the shut speaker and move to what they’d rather have.  Let them have their little wine comfort zone where they can be experts and so proficient and only test and taste the wines they wish.  They can fight-flight, but I won’t.  So yes, this jot is for industry people as well as visitor.

Fighting a flight is rejecting wine reality.  To know, you have to taste.  And to know, you have to intimately familiarize yourself with all types, styles, regions and blend.  What you like, yes, but even more crucially what you don’t like.. or think you don’t.