One of the most important things to do at a wine-tasting event is cleansing your palate between each sip of wine. This allows you to focus on the wine’s more subtle flavors.

You don’t want to ingest all that alcohol over the course of the tasting, so you should spit each sip into a spittoon. After spitting, take a sip of water for a clean slate.

Rather than swallowing the wine and having the liquid touch only small parts of the tongue, swirl the wine around to get the full flavor profile before you spit it out.

Most people go to wine tastings to take in every flavor and listen to a sommelier talk about a wine’s background, not to get drunk. Spittoons exist to accommodate them.

Additionally, you should always swirl the wine in its glass. This introduces air into the wine, which makes its layered scents come out easier.