Throw Your Own Wine Tasting Party
Many are intimidated to throw their own wine party, but it doesn’t need to be a stress-fest. It’s easy to make it a wine-fest. I’ll give you a few options so you can design just what you need. I start with the traditional sit-down wine tasting and then offer some alternatives.
How Many Winos? For a formal tasting I like 12. A wine bottle has approximately 25 ounces (750ml), this allows for 12 folks to have a 2 ounce pour of every wine. I have found that this is what people really want. For some it might be too much, and in that case, I encourage them to share their left over with their neighbors to the left or right. It’s also relatively easy to manage 12 people through 6 wines. If you have more folks, two things to keep in mind is that the pour will be smaller (#of people/25 ounces); 1.5 ounce pour is perfectly fine and that will allow you to serve 18. I think 18 is too much, but it’s your party!!
Set the Table: Everyone gets a wine glass and a water glass. You don’t need a glass for every wine and the wine glasses don’t even have to match. You don’t need a flute for the bubbles because the pros taste Champagne in wine glasses because they allow you to get all the aromas in the wine. Costco has a great set of glasses for about $25. Get big ones you can so everyone can stick their noses right in. It’s also helpful to have a “dump bucket” on the table- which can be anything from a carafe, to a vase, to a large glass. Not everyone will like every wine and your drivers may want a tiny sip. That’s all the wine specific things you need- plates, forks and napkins from your kitchen complete the setting. Place a wine list (or a sheet of paper) and at each seat for the note takers.
Chill Your Wine: Put your whites & Rosè in the fridge in the morning and let them sit out for about 10 minutes before you serve them. Conversely, take your reds and give them about 15 minutes in the fridge before you serve them.
The Wine: Order wines from White (dry to sweet; acid before oak), Rosè to Red (light to heavy; light to dark), The order, especially for Reds should get more complex and contain more tannin as you go down the list. If you know you have a big wine, especially if it’s young with a lot of tannins decant your wine before you serve it. This allows the wine to get some air which tames the tannins in the wine and “opens it up” with more aromas and flavors. You don’t need a special carafe to decant, any one will do. And you can double-decant using a funnel to return the wine to the bottle, which is a nicer way to present the wine. For the rest of the reds, I like to open them an hour or two before the tasting.
The Tasting. It’s great to collect a little information about your wines so that you can share them with your guests. Take a picture of the “shelf-talker” at the wine store or do some quick web research. The proper way to wine taste is to follow the 7 S’s. You are the leader of the tasting so be sure to demonstrate these steps on the first taste and encourage them throughout the party.
1. See: look for clarity and color. All the wines in the kit should be crystal clear. We get things floating in the wine when we drink natural wines or aged wines. Color can indicate varietal, which is a longer lesson for another day, but it also indicates age. White wines turn golden yellow as they age and red ones turn brick red to brown as they age.
2. Smell: go ahead and encourage your guests to put their nose deep into the glass and see if they can pick out aromas- this is the The Nose. There are suggestions on the tasting sheet. Ask folks what they smell.
3. Swirl: now it’s time to swirl to bring some air to the party. This aerates the wine. Oxygen allows the wine to open up so we can get more aromas and tastes from the wine.
4. Smell Again: There will be so many more aromas now and they’ll be stronger.
5. Sip: but don’t swallow yet- these steps go quickly…
6. Slosh: get it all over your mouth, almost like gargling. This will allow the wine to linger, it opens up the wine even more and it allows different flavors to meet different parts of the mouth. What we taste here is called The Palette.
7. Swallow: Finally!! But take a moment to notice how long the flavor of the wine lingers and if you taste something different from the slosh. This is called the The Finish.
Making it Easier. If you want to make it really easy you can purchase the MyWineAdvisor Do It Yourself Wine Tasting Party Kit. You get it all: 6 wines, tasting notes, tasting sheets, a wine quiz, a prize, a small gift for 12 guests, a measured shot glass and a waiter’s corkscrew.
Make it Collaborative. Share the love by asking your guests to bring a bottle of wine. You could choose a theme for party or just let folks bring whatever they’d like. Ask them to do the research on the wine so they share a little about it. Make it even easier on yourself by asking folks to also bring an appetizer or their favorite cheese. One of my favorite things to do is to do a blind tasting and make it a contest. Get some paper wine bags and number them. I save ones I get from buying wine just for this occasion. As the bottles come in put them in the bag and then use some making tape to wrap the bag at the top. Set a small glass near it with the same number. I give everyone three poker chips so they can “vote” for their favorites. Your guests taste through them and then everyone votes. The most votes win- there is no electoral college. Have an extra bottle of wine or a cool wine accessory for the winner. This is a great choice if you want folks to mingle and works well for a larger group.