A few years ago I began a new tradition with my family. Each year when we go on vacation, I conduct a wine tasting with VA wine! This has turned out to be one of the highlights of my vacation!
So how is the best way to conduct your own wine tasting? First, figure out the tastes of the people who will be tasting. We usually have approximately eight to ten adults doing the tasting. Do they like dry or sweet, reds or whites ? Or maybe a mixture? Do not try to use every bottle of wine you have; you may end up with 20 open bottles of wine to finish off in the week! Choose a theme, or category for your tasting. Maybe try all Rose. You can find an unlimited supply of Rose, from dry to sweet to sparkling! A whole tasting can be built around Rose! Or if it’s summer, maybe try light crisp summer wines. Or maybe all reds. Here are some other ways to host a tasting.
Varietal – Sample what a specific wine variety tastes like from different wineries. For example, try comparing Petit Verdot from Thistlegate, Cunningham Creek, Pearmund Cellars, Vint Hill, Chestnut Oak, Willowcroft, Crosskeys, to name a few.
Vintage – If there is a varietal that everybody loves, think about acquiring different vintages of the same wine from the same winery. This might end up being a pricier or more difficult-to-find lineup, but it is enlightening to taste how much age and vintage variation impact a wine’s flavor profile.
Blind Tasting – It’s fun to conduct a blind tasting! Use bottles from a single grape variety and wrap them or pour wines into decanters or pitchers, labeling them by number, and have guests guess what they are tasting! You can either give them a list of the wines in the tasting and let them try to match them, or have them blind guess! This is a fun and conversationally interactive way to really taste wines objectively.
Random – Have everyone bring a bottle of wine. Set a price range, and maybe assign red, white or sweet. If you have a broad variety of tasters of different ages and tastes, you might want to provide the wines for a general mixed tasting. This could consist of several reds varying from dry to lighter, some oaky whites and some stainless whites, and some sweets.
Countries – Try to find wines that have origins in different countries! Some fun examples are Rkatsiteli from Georgia’s Caucasus Mountains bordering Armenia and Turkey, Sangiovese from Italy, Merlot from France, Concord from Massachusetts, Zinfadel from Croatia, Pinotage from South Africa, Traminette from Illinois, Albarino from Spain, Grüner Veltlineretc from Austria, Gewürztraminer from Northern Italy, and Tannat from Uruguay. There are 1,368 known wine grape varieties, but nearly 80 percent of the world’s wine is made from just 20 kinds of grapes.
Limit the guest count to 12 or fewer. A small, intimate group encourages conversation, and it’s easy to pour out single bottles into these portions. Once you exceed this guest count, you’ll have to consider having duplicates of each wine, in order for everyone to obtain a sip. How much wine should there be per person? A bottle of wine is about 24 ounces, so you could conceptually pour 12 2-ounce tastes, or 24 1-ounce taste. The more bottles of wine, the smaller the pour should be. From experience, however, count on guests wanting to re-taste. If you’re personally supplying the wine, count on half a bottle per person for a light tasting, but more realistically one bottle per person. Start small and pour short tastes for each guest. Provide spit buckets, for those who don”t want to get too tipsy or need to drive. Think about lining up the wines in this order: bubbles, light whites, rich whites, rosés, light reds, bold reds, and then dessert wines. Or, sometimes it’s fun to reverse the order and go from heaviest to lightest! Begin with the driest, boldest red, then work your way down from heavy dry to lighter, then do the same with the whites. For the sweets, start with the lightest and finish with the sweetest.
When conducting a tasting, think about the wineries you’ve been to and how many wines you were offered. What seemed correct? How many were too many? What amount seemed not enough? Any more than 12, and you won’t be really tasting anything. Also, put the wines in order.
So you’re figured out how many wines you want to offer, and what type, now, how do you conduct a good tasting? First of all, set everything up! Open the wine, let it have a chance to breathe. Take the whites out of the fridge at the same time you put the reds in. Uncork the whites so they are out about 30 minutes before the tasting begins. Once the reds have been chilling for about 30 minutes, uncork them. Lastly, uncork the sweet wine. The sweets definitely need to be nice and cold! Remind your fellow tasters not to wear cologne or heavy lotions, and hold off on the scented candles until the tasting is over. When conducting a tasting, it’s a good idea to have something to nibble on between tastes. I personally also like a bottle of water to sip between tastes. That way your next taste is fresh! Pick a snack that does not have much flavor. Oyster crackers without salt are a good tasting accompaniment. They are bland and small. Advise each person to eat 1 or 2 between tastes of wine.
So your table is set up, the wines are out and uncorked, there are munchies and water on the table. You’re ready! But hold on, there are a few other things you can do to make this tasting go smoothly! Put some cocktail napkins down under each taster’s glass. Try to pour into the glass while it’s on the table.It’s much easier to pour into a stationary glass sitting on a table than to hit a moving hand! Also, just in case there are dribbles on your end, have a cloth to wipe the bottles so you don’t have wine drips all over the place. Also provide guests with a piece of paper and pen, so they can write down which ones they like. There is a reason why tasting rooms do this, because by the end of the tasting you might not remember which ones you liked! If you have a computer and printer, generate some tasting sheets with the names of the wines, maybe a rating column like 1 to 5, or poor to excellent, etc, and a place for notes.
Pick up each wine bottle prior to pouring, and show the tasters which one they are drinking. Then describe the wine, mentioning the name, where it came from, what grape or grapes it’s made from. Then tell the tasters when you pour for them to swirl it a bit, then smell it, then taste. Remind them several times during the tasting to swirl-sniff-sip! Have them write their impressions on their paper. Take your time with this! This is the fun part! Have someone take some pictures, or post it on Facebook live! Just like when you go visit a tasting room, encourage the tasters to ask questions! Let them know which wines are fermented in oak and which in stainless steel. Explain the difference! Know the different types of oak as well; American, French and Hungarian. Explain that the taste the oak imparts is similar to the personality of the country! French oak fermented wine has a subtler taste, American oak imparts a big bold taste, and Hungarian is somewhere in the middle. New oak imparts the most flavor, and as the oak is used more, the taste becomes subler,until you are using neutral oak! The use of oak has been prevalent in winemaking for at least two millennia, first coming into widespread use during the time of the Roman Empire. In time, winemakers discovered that beyond just storage convenience, wine kept in oak barrels took on properties that improved it by making it softer and, in some cases, better-tasting. You can also explain that some winemakers use only stainless steel containers, but add a bag of oak chips during fermentation, or during aging. This is an economical way to impart an oaky flavor that also takes less time. It also helps with storage space for smaller wineries.
So are your family and friends sophisticated wine connoisseurs? Or casual drinkers who usually drink Mike’s Hard lemonade, White Claw, beer, or cheap grocery store wine! Every year I try very hard to sway at least one member of my family over to the local side of nice wine! If they are only in it for the fun though, you can be brave and try some wine tasting party games! Here are a few that have a bit more finesse than beer pong and flip cup!
1. Draw the wine label. Is your group artistic? Show the tasters the back of the wine label, and after they taste the wine have them draw what they think the front label might look like!
2. Wine Bingo, or wine-o! Discover who has the most discerning taste buds with a game of wine Bingo. Create a bingo card by putting one type of wine—Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Riesling, etc.—in each square. To play, conduct a blind taste test and place a token (maybe a wine cork) on the square that you think matches each sample of wine. When someone gets bingo, check to see if their tastes were on-point.
3. Describe this wine. People often use flowery language to describe wines, but you can make it a little more lively with some silly prompts, Cards against Humanity style. Make up cards that say things like, “If this wine was a celebrity, who would it be?” or “Use a word that begins with R to describe this wine?” Or, “use a body part to describe this wine.” These fun tasks are sure to deliver endless laughs.
4. Follow my rules. The great thing about hosting any party at your home is you get to create the house rules. Give each guest a wine cork, and tell them that they cannot say the word “Wine” for the rest of the night. If someone catches them saying it, they get to take the wine cork. The person at the end of the night with the most corks wins a prize.
5. Boozy categories. The game “Categories” is a classic, as it’s fun to play and easy to learn. Basically, you choose a category, then go around the table naming items in it. If someone hesitates or repeats an item, they’re out! For your gathering, give the game a fun twist by only using different wine names, different types of grapes, winery names, etc..
6. The Price is right. Some people swear they can taste the difference between cheap and expensive wine, so why not turn this bold claim into a little competition? Give everyone a piece of paper, and serve them a few glasses of wine at different price points. Have them guess the price of each bottle, and see who comes the closest.
7. How many corks. Have you ever had to guess how many jelly beans are in a jar? You can do the same thing with wine corks! Save up corks for a month or so before the party, then put them all in a jar and have guests guess how many there are.
8. Wine Trivia. Discover which of your friends is a sommelier in the making with a few rounds of wine trivia. There are plenty of fun facts online, and you can play individually or break up into teams, depending on how many people you have.
For prizes, you can give out unopened bottles of wine, or wine toppers or charms, etc. Of course bragging rights may be all the prizes that are needed!
If all of this is a little overwhelming, quite a few VA wineries are hosting virtual tastings, and will send you a kit with everything you need to conduct a tasting! Some Va wineries that are participating in virtual tastings are Keswick, Early Mountain, Narmeda, Little Washington, Horton, Bluestone, Ingleside, Morais, Stone Tower, Crosskeys, Molon Lave, Walsh, Breaux, Arterra, Doukenie, and La Grange, to name a few. Contact them for details!
So the tasting is finished. Offer your guests a glass of any wine of their choice, and relax! This is when you can light candles and bring out more substantial and flavorfull foods. Once your guesta have left, you can assess your leftover wine situation. If you’ve planned correctly, you shouldn’t have much, but if you do, the next blog will help you out with some recipes for using up that extra wine!
Cheers!
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