When spitting at the table is OK, or is it?

During a recent trip to Europe we were lucky enough to eat at one of the top 10 restaurants in the world; we sat adjacent to two American gentlemen who were tasting a variety of wines by the glass. They had obviously requested receptacles in order to ''spit out''. It was a quiet restaurant and we found the sound of spitting and rinsing while trying to enjoy the exquisite cuisine quite off-putting. Is wine tasting at the restaurant table the new paradigm, and is such behaviour now acceptable?

Context is everything, isn't it? Getting naked among strangers is pretty much mandatory at a Japanese bathhouse. At a start-of-school-year P&C meeting, by contrast, it might enliven proceedings but is unlikely to please everyone present. Like public stripping, public spitting is socially acceptable within a very limited array of contexts and, some would say, best left to professionals.

I'm guessing that Messrs Spitty and Hoick at the table next to yours were wine professionals. Although winemakers, wine educators and others in the trade are forever encouraging tasters to embrace the art of spitting, the take-up rate is low. In most modern cultures and contexts, spitting is acceptable only when sampling wine and - to my mind this is important - in the company of consenting adults.

Judges at wine shows do it. Sommeliers do it en masse at trade tastings. Visitors at winery cellar doors often do it; however, my rigorously unscientific polling suggests that nine out of 10 tasters who choose to spit are at least peripherally involved with the wine trade. Such people spit habitually in the course of their work and mix with fellow wine obsessives who do the same; it is possible some become desensitised to the fact many people find it repellent. So is wine tasting and spitting at upmarket restaurant tables the new paradigm? No. It happens, but not often enough to call it normal. Is it acceptable behaviour? That depends on how it's done.

Clayton Hiskins, restaurant manager and sommelier at Victoria's Ten Minutes By Tractor, says it is unusual but not unheard of for connoisseurs to arrange to taste a range of wines while seated in the restaurant. When it's discreet, it does not trouble nearby diners. However, he acknowledges too much noise and too little decorum could tarnish another customer's enjoyment of what should be a special meal. In the event you encounter such a situation again, have a word with the maitre d' to see if it's possible to move to another table.