Austria may make less than 2 per cent of the world's wines but it seems to have the fiercest reputation as a place to bash the liver.
'On a recent trip to Austria, I tasted over 200 wines in two and a half days ... I'm still recovering but you've got to do what you've got to do!' says Zachary Yu, sommelier at Langham Place hotel in Mong Kok.
I recently judged 90 beers in just three hours for upcoming trade show Restaurant and Bar (R&B). The panel tasted some 160 beers over two days.
A coy Italian wine importer told us of the 600-sample marathon of sweet wines he undertook over a weekend in Salzburg. Despite spitting the wines out, he had to go to bed for a week afterwards. I had to go to work the next day.
Andrew Caillard, Master of Wine, wine auctioneer and the creator of Langton's Classification of Australian Wine, says that in the early 1990s he tasted 250 to 300 wines in a day at the Sydney Wine Show, 'before the extension of tasting panels and a more realistic work rate'.
'I don't think it's possible to taste more than 60 to 80 wines effectively in a day,' he says. 'Palate fatigue is a problem. The whole body aches after tasting and concentrating so much,' Caillard adds.
