With the harvest season in full swing, back-to-school events taking place, and the holidays just around the corner, ‘tis the season for dinner parties and small gatherings. Spice up your next dinner party by adding a fun (and not so serious) wine tasting as entertainment. There are many different ways to have a party, but I will let you decide which way is best for you and your guests.

How many times have you wondered what it would be like to taste wine like the “professionals” and have your own “blind tasting?” Well, now you can. Wine tasting parties can accommodate groups of four to sixteen people. One bottle of wine can easily be poured in small tasting amounts for up to 16 people. You should try to select four to six wines for comparison and rating.

The next step is to select a theme for the wine tasting. Example: six different Merlots—different prices, regions, same winery and different years, etc. Or maybe you would like to compare three white wines and three red wines.

There are different tasting kits you can purchase, but I suggest making your own kit.

Check list of Party Supplies

• Four to six different wines to taste
• A wine opener
• A set of wine glasses for each taster—one glass for each
  different wine
• Brown paper bags to completely cover the wines.
• Tupperware or plastic cups for each person to spit or to
  dump out wines
• A wine placement mat for each taster which contains a
  pattern for placement of wine glasses (go to
  www.winecountrygetaways.com/host.html to print a free
  placement mat)
• Pens
• Music
• Small cubes of French bread or crackers to clear the palate
• A scoring sheet to evaluate and score the wines (go to
  www.winecountrygetaways.com/host.html to print a free
  scoring sheet)

It is now time to setup for the tasting. Before your guests arrive, open all the wines, cover each with a brown paper bag and label each bag with a number or letter of the alphabet. Set the wine glasses out on the placemat. Fill each glass with 2 oz. of wine. Make sure you pour the correctly-labeled wine into the corresponding wine glass on the placemat. All the wine glasses should have the same amount of wine.

When having your tasting party, you probably want to serve something light, such as cheese and crackers or bite-size pieces of French bread. You could also serve pieces of fruit. Remember to have plenty of water available to sip between tastes.

There are a few different ways to conduct the tasting. The wines can be tasted one at a time followed by discussion or each person can taste all the wines independently and score them independently. Lastly, tally each taster’s score and rank the wines. Once you have the results, you can announce the winner to your guests and reveal all the different wines that were tasted.

As we all know, marketing plays an important role in the price and popularity of most wines. For example, Pinot Noir was a fairly unpopular wine until the movie “Sideways” was released. Now consumers can’t get enough of it and sales have skyrocketed. Another preconceived notion is that a wine is better if it is more expensive. This is not true anymore. Just because a wine is $5.99 doesn’t mean it doesn’t taste as good as a $25 bottle of wine. Blind tastings enable you and your guests to choose your favorite wine without judging a wine by it’s label or price.

After all of the wines have been revealed and the winner has been announced, pour another glass in celebration. After all, you just hosted your first successful wine tasting party.
Congratulations!