Want to host your own wine tasting party? Follow these experts tips for a fine wine night
- Pick a theme, pick a grape variety or winemaker, wrap the bottles in foil for a blind tasting, go from dry to sweet wines and get tasting
Instead of yet another film or game night, hosting a wine tasting is a great alternative. If you aren’t a trained sommelier, one easy way to do it is to ask each guest to bring a bottle and introduce their wine.
“Every home wine tasting should have a theme,” says Ernst Büscher, spokesman for the German Wine Institute (DWI), who has a few tips on how to make the event special.
One approach is to select a grape variety for the chosen theme, and perhaps even limit it to one growing region.
Tastings of different vintages are also popular. Focus on a grape variety from one vintner who sells wines from different vineyards. That allows the wines to reveal their ageing potential as well as the climatic influences in the individual vintages. Always start with the youngest wine when tasting different vintages.
Once you have decided on a theme, buy the wine or ask your guests to bring a bottle. To make things more interesting, taste the wine first before revealing all your knowledge.
Blind tastings are also popular. Wrap the bottles in aluminium foil, number them, hand everyone a glass and let the deliberations begin.