Summer is just around the corner which means you and I are already thinking about hosting a dinner party or two in the backyard. What better excuse to have friends over than hosting a wine tasting party? You can ask your guests to each bring a bottle and you can be in charge of the clean glasses, some cheese, crackers and other tasting aids, a little music and you’re pretty much set. How to organize a wine tasting in your living room? Here are some of my own tips on how to do it, how a tasting is done properly and most importantly how to have fun doing it.
Wine tasting is all about practise but everyone can do it, even if they insist they can’t tell the different. If you pick wines with enough character, you’ll be able to tell the difference, I’m sure. You can use a number of different tasting methods, one of the most popular is a blind tasting where guests do not know which wine is which and they are left only with the information from their senses to decide if they like it or not. It’s the easiest way to get an honest evaluation.
How many people should attend? In my opinion, the more the merrier, the larger the group the more open they’ll be in expressing what they taste, smell and feel and where. Wine tasting requires all of the senses, it’s not just about the taste and the tongue. Do the math though, if you invite more than ten people think about buying duplicate bottles because if a standard bottle has 750 ml or 25 ounces and each tasting you pour is 2 ounces then only about 12 people can taste from a single bottle. You can pour smaller samples however if your bottle runs short.
Location:
Choose a place that has great lighting and has enough room for a taster to sit with a few glasses in front of them. A well-lit dining room would do the trick perfectly.If you don’t want to risk ruining your favourite white table cloth then provide a sheet of plain white paper for each person. It’s the easiest background to see the colour of the wine with.
Outdoor tasting are also fun. Time it for the late afternoon when there is still a lot of light but it’s not hot outside. If the sun is still out, find a shaded place for the table. Never leave the wine out in the sun, it will make it flat within a few minutes. No fun to drink hot wine.
Tasting Sheets:
These are common at many wineries but as easy to make up on your own. Supply your gusts with a chart with the wines listed, their details and space for them to jot down their comments about the wine, maybe a star counter too like 4/5 stars of 2/5. It’s also fun to have a column for individual ranking as well as overall group rating to see which wines the group liked best and which ones you liked best.
Logistics:
In a tasting you should start with whites then go to reds. Start with light-bodied then go to heavy bodied. Start with dry then go to sweet. All three of these characteristics can usually be found on the bottle or in a wine magazine that featured the bottle. Stick to only 4 or 5 wines, after that your taste buds won’t be able to pick up the subtleties of the flavours. It’s always nice to end with a dessert wine or some sort, of if you plan on continuing drinking wine after the tasting then you can skip it.
Cleanse your palette between wines with non-salted crackers or bread sticks or a slice of mild cheese. To make the wine tasting more interesting you can read up on certain wines that go spectacularly good with certain foods or flavours. Cabernet franc for example is great with a dark high-quality chocolate. If you purchase an apple-ey riesling, have a few granny smith apples out on the table so that guests can smell the apple and smell the wine. Always have a pitcher of room temperature water on the table as well.
When tasting the first thing you should look at is the colour against the sheet of white paper and held up to the light. Swirl the glass now for several long seconds and push your nose as far into the glass as you can. Deep breathe. Swirl again, watching how the wine sticks to the side of the glass. Does it have legs? This is an indication of body. Now the first sip you could classify as mouth wash. Take a sip into your mouth and swish it around so that it touches every part of your mouth. Swallow. Where do you feel the wine the most? On the tip of your tongue? On the back, the sides? Does it tingle, what do you taste? How does it feel in your mouth?
Now you can drink the wine in small sips, trying to pick out any flavours that are familiar or just enjoying how it tastes in your mouth. For me, its usually the third or fourth sip that decides if I really like it and whether or not I could manage to drink a whole glass of it. Take your time. Smell it again. Spin the wine constantly during the tasting, this will put air into the wine “opening it up” and bringing out new smells and new flavours. If you have a young and full bodied wine you can decant it before the tasting as well. (Tip: 1 hour of decanting is roughly equivalent to 1 year of ageing, so if you want to know how a wine will age, just spend an afternoon decanting and tasting every hour so you know how long to keep a bottle in the cellar)
Spittoons:
These funny buckets are used for spitting out wine. I know, I know. Who would want to spit out wine? If you’re guests are driving home, put a spittoon on the table and then at least they have the option to spit or swallow. You don’t have to buy one, you can make one. I’ve seen some made out of a vase with a funnel in it. You want something solid, not see through, and something where they can spit in and not get back splash.
Use fresh glasses for every wine if you can. If not you should at least have a white cup and then a red cup or guests can lightly clean out their glasses with water between each tasting.
The most important thing about wine tasting is to have fun. This is the best way to try new wines you wouldn’t normally buy and to really challenge your taste buds and discover new flavours and new vintages. Wine is so varied and so unique that it can never get boring, ever. I’ve never met anyone who really wasn’t game to try something new, which is where blind tastings become interesting. Maybe you always thought you hated a merlot because you tried it once 5 years ago and that particular vintage from that region was too rainy. Your tastes have changed since then and you might be flabbergasted to know you love it now. So enjoy! And start tasting!
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