A single strong cocktail can send your blood alcohol level into dangerous levels when measured immediately after consumption. Two strong cocktails can easily approach legal impairment to drive or operate machinery, depending on your weight and personal rate of absorption—again, when measured immediately after consumption and determined by a breathalyzer. But what about wine when taken in one-ounce increments over time?
The following report is based on actual blood alcohol measurements.
Wine and Time
First, wine is much slower to lead to impairment than spirits. And when consumed over a period of time, the body is better able to assimilate the alcohol. Typical pours at wine-tasting events are around one ounce. Five ounces comprise a standard serving. A typical visit to a winery tasting room might total a single legal serving. But a typical winery visit is likely to take at least a half hour or more. Wine festivals will offer many more opportunities to taste, but will probably last much longer than a single winery visit. The length of time of consumption is key, as shown in the chart above. Such consumption is very unlikely to even register on a breathalyzer.
Wine and Food
Eating is the key to optimizing the body’s ability to properly assimilate alcohol. This is a primary reason why almost all public wine-tasting events offer some form of food. Wine samples consumed alternately with food, even in the form of crackers or cheese nibbles, will be very slow to register a significant blood alcohol level. The combination of time of consumption and eating at intervals provides excellent protection from impairment.
Large-scale Wine Festivals
You might think that wine festival events that present dozens or even hundreds of wines for tasting might present serious impairment issues. The fact is, with reasonable discipline on the taster’s part, they do not. We’ve attended events where a hundred samples were consumed (not spit) with food interludes over a two-hour period and blood alcohol levels failed to measure beyond 0.02, way below the legal limit for driving in the U.S.
Conclusion
Drunkenness can be a very serious public problem and some people drink specifically to achieve a “buzz.” But for wine lovers who do not have a personal problem with alcohol consumption, the notion that they need a designated driver when they go wine tasting may well be overkill. Time and food are your defenses against alcoholic impairment. If you stretch your tasting experience out over time and consume some form of food at intervals, you are highly unlikely to achieve dangerous or illegal blood alcohol levels.
Alan Boehmer - Alan Boehmer has conducted regular wine seminars and wine tours since 1967. Originally based in Los Angeles, he served as a consultant for ...
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