Whether you are on the early side of the learning curve about wines or are a wine expert, there is always another bottle of wine out there that you would like to try. In order to taste several wines in one sitting, why not host a wine tasting party?
Wines
How many wines should you serve? Plan on having between six and eight different wines during your wine tasting party.
What kind of wines should you choose? You might decide to serve eight different chardonnays, each from a different price range. Or, you might prefer the chardonnays from different appellations, or growing areas. Another option is to taste two different varietals, such as sauvignon blanc and pinot noir, and pick several different variations of each.
How much wine should you purchase? Plan on serving between one to two ounces of each wine to every guest. One good way of figuring out how much wine to buy is to take the number of people that you have invited and divide that number by four to get the number of bottles per wine that you will need. For example, if a total of 12 people are going to be at your wine tasting party, you will want 3 bottles of each wine. This will give you more than enough to cover your guests.
Preparation
Make sure that you properly chill and aerate your wines as needed. This will have an impact on the wines' taste.
How many wine glasses will you need? For a formal wine tasting party, provide a separate wine glass for each taste. You might consider using a wine placemat that has a place setting for each wine glass that your guests will be using.
If you are having an informal wine tasting party, you will only need to have one wine glass per person.
Have water and water glasses available regardless of whether your wine tasting party is formal or informal. Water will be consumed between each tasting to clean the palate. If your wine tasting party is informal, you will also need water to wash out wine glasses between samplings.
Some people may choose to spit out their wine rather than actually drink it, since alcohol can affect all of our senses. Others will enjoy drinking the wine as part of the overall wine tasting experience. For those who spit, provide some open vases or ice buckets for them to use.
Your guests should have pens or pencils and note paper so that they can take notes on their reactions to each wine. Part of the fun of a wine tasting party is comparing ideas on each wine that is served, during and after the tasting.
Food
The types of food that you serve at a wine tasting party are open to some debate. Some purists feel that only water should be served during the tasting to protect the palette. If you insist on serving something, purists prefer cubes of French bread or unsalted crackers. Others use a wine tasting party to experiment with food pairings. Sometimes, a meal is served after the formal tasting is over. The choice is yours.
Presentation
There are two ways to present your wines during a wine tasting party. One way is to have a blind tasting, where the labels are removed from the bottles and the bottles are placed in paper bags. The paper bags are then numbered between one and eight, if you are serving eight different wines, to keep track of which wine is being served. Or, you can present the bottles out with their labels visible. Many feel that a blind tasting is a better way to go because your guests will not be influenced by the packaging and information on the wines' bottles.
It is important to place your wines in the proper order. Your wine tasting party should start with light wines first and then progress up to the fullest-bodied wine that you all will be trying. This will keep fuller-bodied wines from overpowering a lighter wines' taste. If you are combining different types of wines, the wines should progress from sparkling to whites to reds and finally to sweet wines.
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