In its very simplest form, a wine tasting party is nothing more than a couple of friends getting together tasting a bottle of wine they have not tried before. However, when people are thinking about a wine party, they are thinking of something a little more formal.
For more formal wine parties, you may want to start by sending out some invitations. Again, there are no standards, you can go from simple blank line invitations, to something more elaborate that you’ve picked up at the stationery store, or you can even pick up entire wine tasting kits.
One thing you’ll want to do when thinking about hosting a wine party is to decide if it will it be something informal with some finger food, or will you go all out and have a wine tasting dinner? if you love to cook the dinner may be the way to go, and you can really have some fun pairing up your wine with your food.
If you go this route you want to make sure that you start your dinner off with something light, and pair with a white wine. As your dinner progresses, your foods get heavier, as does your wine. You could end your wine pairing dinner with a scrumptious dessert, and a sweet dessert wine. this is a great way to spend a fun filled evening with an intimate group of friends, drinking wine the way it was meant to be drank, with food.
A lot of people doing tasting at home will not want to go to the expense and work of having a full dinner. They want to go with something a lot more informal, and just having a few friends over and tastings of wines. if you would like to host a wine tasting like this, you don’t really need a lot of preparation. While you would really need to do is set yourself up a wine tasting table, grab a few bottles of wine, and throughout some crackers and cheese to help clear the palate between the tastings.
They’re all kinds of accessories that you can use for your wine tasting party. Although they are not necessary, they sometimes add to the learning experience of the party, or sometimes they’re just plain fun. There is wine tasting software on the market, as well as other accessories such as a wine tasting journal, a wine tasting book, or a wine tasting sheet, which are basically all the same things. They’re just some kind of stationery that you can use to jot down your wine tasting notes.
You could set out some wine tasting cards for people to jot their notes on, and if you wanted to be helpful and provide a learning experience, you could get the cards that have wine tasting terms printed on them. that would be terms such as dry wine, fruity, excellent bouquet, nose, and finish. There is really no need for this, it’s not as if you are going to be writing a wine review for your local newspaper.
If you’re going to host a party, there is a wine game that you could play. it is pretty simple to set up, you simply take your bottles of wine and put them in a brown paper bag. Secure the bag around the neck, with a rubber band or a piece of ribbon, and let everyone do their tasting without looking at the label on the bottle. what this does is take away people’s preconceived notions that they have by looking at the wine label.
Then when everyone has tasted, you could all compare your notes. this is kind of a fun tasting game to play when you are part of a wine club, where members meet on a regular basis to try out different wines. The person who is hosting the wine party is sometimes responsible for obtaining a bottle of wine as a gift for the person who brings the wine that ends up with the most votes at the end of the evening.
What I really like about this wine game is first of all, doing away with the preconceived notions, but secondly finding out what other people write in their notes. it is never the same thing that I write in mine. Where I may taste black cherries, another person’s palate may pick up the oak flavoring. and of course if there is any wine in the bottle left at the end of comparing notes. It’s always a great time to go back and re-taste the wine after comparing everyone’s notes.
So go ahead and get a group together, maybe you can even start your own wine club.
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