Monday, April 11, 2011




Wine Tasting Party Ideas

A wine tasting party is a great way to bring together friends, family and new acquaintances in a relaxed environment where people may share their love and knowledge of wine. What prevents many people from actually hosting a wine and cheese type party is that they think they have to be sommeliers to do it. But you don't need to know a lot about wine to throw a successful party. Here are a few wine tasting party ideas to get you ready to host your own wine tasting party.

How to start?

To begin with, you need to decide what type of wine tasting party you want to throw. You can either host a vertical or horizontal price point party or a wine and cheese pairing party. It all depends on your budget and the number of guests you intend to invite. Most new party host decide on a wine and cheese pairing party because they are often less serious affairs than the straight wine tasting parties.

Next, you will want to send out invitations at least a couple of weeks in advance. Like any party, it is best to ask your guests to RSVP so that you know exactly how many bottles of wine you will need.

Wine Tasting Game

One of the easiest best wine tasting party ideas is to have a simple, fun wine tasting game. Purchase or design your own tasting cards that record the type of wine, the vineyard, and the year it was produced. Make sure that each person has a card on which they can record the wine's appearance, taste, aroma, and overall score.

Less experienced wine tasters should probably only rate which wines they liked best and which wines that did not care for. Then they can listen and learn from the other guests and perhaps participate in more involved wine tasting and scoring at the next party.

If, however, you have an experienced group of wine tasters, you might decide to make things more challenging and insist on a blind tasting. In this instance, you still give your guest their tasting cards, but your pour all of the wines without revealing the label (simply place bottles in brown paper bags).

The goal of the wine tasting game is to correctly identify the wines based on the descriptions on the labels. The person who is able to identify the most wines wins a prize-often a fine bottle of wine.

Decorations and Activities

A great thing about this type of event is that does not require you to go all out and purchase anything you might not already have around the house. All you will need is a good-sized table and a white tablecloth on which to place all of the wines. You may also choose to light a few unscented candles to add to the mood.

As for activities, it is often a good idea to break the ice and get the evening started with a few games of wine trivia. You may award the winner of each game a small prize or party favor, like an inexpensive bottle of wine or a corkscrew (gag gift).

What you will need:

Four to six bottles of wine
Some light appetizers, such as cheese and crackers
A few loaves of French or Italian bread
A pitcher of water for cleaning palates between tastings
A bucket or dumper for guests to spit wine into
Glasses
Grading Cards
Pens and pencils



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Amber_Coco

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