How to Organize a Wine Tasting PartyDIY GuidesDIY Guides

A good way for you to experience new flavors of wine is by organizing a wine tasting party where you can also, at the same time, develop a wine palate plus also spend some precious time with your close friends. In order for you to have a well organized party, you must plan it in advance so that the party will run without a hitch and everyone who attends the party will enjoy the event. Although it looks like a simple party to organize, you still need to have good guidelines before you decide to entertain your guests to the party. It will be nice if you have friends who have experienced in doing the same party or are knowledgeable about wine to help you facilitate and become the group’s leader at your party. It does not matter if you do not have friends with the above mentioned knowledge; you can also hire a sommelier or wine expert for the occasion, but with an extra cost because usually a wine expert will provide you with more information and he is likely to be more passionate when talking about wine thus making your party much more interesting.

To organize a wine tasting party, you need:

Wide selection of wines
Drinking equipments such as wine glasses and spitting bucket
Wine bottle openers
Guests with legal drinking age to taste the wines
Pens, notebook or papers for guests to take notes
Tasting guide notes, placemats, tasting rating cards, an aroma chart
Suitable food to consume before and after tasting wines

Organizing a Wine Tasting Party

How to Organize a Wine Tasting Party

First of all, before you start to organize a wine tasting party you should consider the selection of wine that you want to use for the occasion, plus you can also create a specific theme like to taste an assortment of Riesling’s wine and compare its difference of growing and production methods or using biodynamic and organic wines. Another alternative is for you to get your guests to bring along with them each bottle of their favorite wines to the party.
Once you have managed to get your wine collection, you must ensure to store them the right way before the tasting party starts.
- For storing white wines, it is recommended to store them in your refrigerator with at least 45 ºF. To be able to reach this level, it must be stored for about two hours inside the refrigerator.
- As for red wines, you should store them in cool or dark place and if you do not have a basement, you can simply store them at the bottom of your closet. Apart from that, you must make sure that the red wines are served with at least 63 °F temperature.

It is also recommended that you store your red wine in the refrigerator for 30 minutes before you start serving them. Do not place them more than the mentioned time limit as you do not want it to be too cold.

You should always remember and remind your guests that wine tasting is totally different than normal wine drinking that you do with your friends
- Wine tasting is more to describing your experience when tasting a particular wine.
- You also need to prepare a Tasting Kit for each of your wine selection and they should include a simple tasting guide, placemats, tasting rating cards and also an aroma chart.
- Tasting guide is for highlighting the uniqueness of each wine that you select, along with wine words for your guest to use as guidelines.
- The use of placemat will help keep your wines in order and displaying extra information relating to each of the wine styles.
- Tasting rating cards also helps your guest in providing input of the wines they tasted.
- In addition, the aroma chart, which normally provides you with information relating to different smells produced by certain wines will also help your guest to easily identify the wine selected.
On the day of your wine tasting party
- Make sure to prepare your wine glasses and wine opener ready.
- To print out and prepare tasting guides, placemats, tasting rating cards and also an aroma chart according to number of guests you invited.
- Prepare a pen or pencil along with a glass of water according to number of guests you invited.
- It is recommended that you allocate each of your guests with a glass for each of the wine that you are using for the tasting party.

When talking about wine tasting, the well-known Thomas Jefferson has this quote to say about it, “Good wine is a necessity for me”.

The next step is for you to request your guests to start tasting the wine from the light wine until the fullest
- Make sure to follow the traditional tasting with a standard level pour of about 1 ½ ounces of wine per glass
Finally, you must also prepare suitable foods that you can pair-off with the wine
- Sometimes different types of food that you consume will make certain wines taste different.
- Always ensure that your guests take up some food before starting to taste any of the wines because it is advisable to taste wines when your stomach are empty and you certainly do not want them to simultaneously do their tasting while enjoying the food.
- Some of the food, which are suitable with wine is neutral palate cleansers like crackers before you start to do any tasting, an assortment of cheeses, chocolates or other finger foods after the tasting, plus also other late supper kind of food that pairs well with the wines you selected.

According to the medical community, the persons who consume red wine in a moderate kind of way would be able to lower his/her risk of having heart disease, breast cancer, prostate cancer and also cataract problems.

Always remember that the most important part in organizing a wine tasting party is choosing the selection of wine

to cater for theme party, there are lots of wine to choose from your local wine stores such as “California Chardonnays”, “German Rieslings”, “Wines Under The Price of $10.00”, or “Italian Reds”.
To choose wines from certain winery or to select different vintages or years of the same brand of wine, which are likely to be more costly because vintage wine are much more expensive than normal wine.

Image Credit:
Flickr CC