(NYTimes) - Tasting a wine for evaluation is something wine professionals are compelled to do. But it’s not the best way to assess a wine. It’s a compromise.

Critics for consumer wine magazines, judges in wine competitions, and sommeliers in restaurants must evaluate dozens of bottles in a sitting, and to actually drink that much wine poses obvious challenges. The solution is to take a sip of wine, taste and swirl, take its measure, then spit it out.

It’s not a perfect system, for many reasons. But tastings are the only way to get a sense of many wines in a sitting without keeling over from alcohol poisoning. It’s the method we use at our wine panel tastings.