A Wine Tasting Party is a great way to try new wine and have fun. Here are a few good ideas on planning a successful Wine Tasting Party. |
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1. Determine the theme of your wine tasting.
- Vertical Tastings will compare a single winery's wine from different vintage. An example is to taste Chardonnay’s from 2001, 2003 and 2006 all from the same vineyard.
- Horizontal Tasting sticks with a single vintage and explores the success of different wineries with the vintage. The purpose of tasting one vintage is mainly to compare the different producers and vineyards. For example, Napa Valley red wines from 2001.
- Blind Tastings offer a test on the acuity of a wine taster's tongue and nose. A person judges and makes notes without any preconceived notion about the wine.
- Varietal Tastings let explore different varietals and regions of the world. Organize a flight of Syrahs or try Sauvignon Blancs from New Zealand, France, South Africa, and California. This will help you get a sense of similarities and variances that occur between Old World and New World wines.
2. Send out invitations. The perfect party size is 8 –12 people. If guests are expected to bring wine, make sure they understand the parameters of the tasting and bring a bottle that they think is interesting. Specify a budget if appropriate.
3. Provide a simple cheese platter, fruit, bread, crackers, and dessert. It doesn’t have to be fancy. You can buy a fruit tray and cheese tray and be done!
4. Typically, when tasting wines, you will want to work from dry to sweet with white wines and progress from light to full-bodied with red wines. Start with younger wines and move to the more mature wines.
- You always want to serve wine at the optimal temperature. We like to use the 20/20 rule we learned at our wine tasting party. Refrigerate whites to fully chilled and pull them out of the refrigerator 20 minutes before serving. Refrigerate reds for 20 minutes before serving.
5. Pour approximately 2 ounces of wine per person for each tasting. That is about an inch in the glass. Each bottle will provide approximately 10-12 “tastings” or 25 ounces.
6. You may like to provide wine tasting note cards to encourage your guests to share their thoughts and humor on each wine.
7. It is fun to tally the Score Sheets and award a small prize for the best bottle of wine. We like to provide small prizes for the person that correctly guesses the number of corks in a jar and for the guest who brings the most corks to the party.
You can always ask your local merchant which wines they recommend or email us. We have many that we enjoy, but remember wine is a personal choice. The wines we like may not be your favorite. That is what is fun about wine tastings, as some wines may surprise you. Don’t be afraid to try them all! You may discover that you like Chardonnay, Merlot or even a Syrah.
It's party time. Cheers!
Jennifer Sterling
