The first part can be found here. Again the following is copyright 2003 Copia.

“At issue is something that might be called ‘cellar cred.’ As Michael Steinberger put it in the online magazine Slate: ‘If you want to be seen as legit by the Crips, it helps to have a drive-by shooting to your credit. If you want to be seen as legit by wine geeks, you need to be able to shoot a mouthful of Chardonnay in a clean, straight line….’”

“This all seems to imply the existence of an unspoken ‘spitting order.’ Parker acknowledges that, ‘When a lot of tasters get together, there’s some comparison that goes on. It’s like dogs marking their territory – if you can spit farther than another person, in a strong and well defined stream with a tight spiral, it means you’ve got balls.’ Prather comes forward to confess that he’s ‘suffered from the feeling of spitting inferiority. In the company of a master, I had to walk to the gutter several times while he never left the side of the barrel. When I witness something like that, I experience spitting envy.’”

“With regard to spitting prowess, certain names surface repeatedly. For example, Alexis Bespaloff (author of The New Signet Book of Wine) was once declared by Gentlemen’s Quarterly to be ‘without question the greatest wine spitter in America today.’ Maresca, who has tasted with Bespaloff in places that lacked serviceable spittoons, recounts that “in those situations, Alex was never at a loss – he could loft over a peice of shrubbery ten feet away.” Parker says that the best spitter he knows (a practitioner of ‘prodigious ability’) is Peter Bezan, an American broker of French wines. ‘He can reach twelve or fifteen feet with a beautiful arc and a fluid motion,’ Parker says. ‘So to speak.’”

“The Alpha spitter of Australia is said to be Len Evans – a man who, as creator of that country’s first wine column in 1962, is known Down Under as Mr. Wine. Evans himself, however, humbly concedes the crown to Rosewood winemaker Bill Chambers – explaining, by way of an excuse, that his rival possesses ‘an unfair advantage: He’s missing two upper teeth. I’m the best that has no gap.’ (Parker dismisses this category as ‘phony spit. I have a slight gap myself,’ he points out, ‘but I don’t use if for spitting.’)…â€?

“Spittoons are almost always on the table at American tastings, which typically offer nothing more elaborate than empty ice buckets, rendering inevitable the hazard of ‘splashback’ (likened by Alan Richman in GQ TO ‘a grenade going off in a paint factory’). A recent and encouraging trend in the U.S. is the provision of personal spit cups – preferably opaque – to cover the distance between one’s face and the public pool. Tom Hill, wine maven of Los Alamos, New Mexico, bravely employs a small portable urinal (colored red and mysteriously named ‘Little Johnn’) designed for use by airplane pilots; when it’s half full, he empties it into the communal receptacle. In Europe it’s common for spittoons to be situated in the aisles between tasting tables, often equipped with an oversized funnel emptying into a concealed drum or tank.�

“‘Sloppy spitters can get right on top of it and let the wine drizzle down their faces,’ says the approving Parker, who also relates the fact that , ‘In Bordeaux, they have these extraordinary high-tech troughs with running water – almost like elaborate latrines. Some of the places are like state-of-the-art schoolrooms, with desks that have their own sinks and spigots.’ At the other extreme (e.g., Burgundy), cellars are often outfitted with only a sawdust-filled bucket or a gravel floor; and in wineries all over the world, tasters expectorate unceremoniously into drainage grates in the ground.�